SCIENCE NEWS

BIG SCIENCE COMPETITION

Earlier this year the ELMS students attempted the Big Science Competition Examination. This is a one hour examination that covers science application questions and is produced by Australian Science Innovations, the same organisation that organises the Australian arm of the International Science Olympiad. This year students from McKinnon achieved 18 high distinctions, 40 distinctions and 77 credits. Richard Grimm, of Year 7, finished in the top 49 junior competitors. Congratulations Richard! It is worth noting that 45, 000 students sat this test around Australia.

YEAR 7 ELMS SCIENCE FAIR

Recently the Year 7 ELMS students completed a project that required them to design experiments from scratch to investigate a topic of interest. The work was fabulous and, in order to share it effectively, the students have generated a google site where the community can read and watch videos explaining the work. The digital Year 7 ELMS Science Fair can be found at

https://sites.google.com/a/mckinnonsc.vic.edu.au/7elms/

SCIENCE WEEK

August 12-16 was National Science Week. McKinnon Secondary College celebrated in a variety of ways: 

IN CLASS DEMONSTRATIONS AND COMPETITIONS

Students participated in a variety of demonstrations including tornado tubes, mystery tubes, dry ice and the popping balloon demonstration to name a few. Students wrote detailed inferences in order to win prizes. 

SOLAR OVEN CHALLENGE 

Many students entered the solar oven challenge and built fantastic heat capturing devices. Ten minutes in the sun on a wintery Friday and temperatures of 60o C were achieved! 

SCIENCE SURVIVOR 

During Science Week, Year 8 Science Survivor challenged students to apply their logical, mathematical, creative, engineering and scientific skills to a number of problems. Included was a challenge to build the tallest tower out of four sheets of newspaper and design an experiment to model a spaghetti engineering problem.

LUNCHTIME ACTIVITIES 

Lunchtimes were busy and despite some very ordinary weather students built rockets, fired rockets, blew bubbles, tested solar ovens and listened to talks given by a number of local science professionals who spoke about their professions and career pathways. Thanks to Josh from Southern Suburbs Physiotherapy who spoke on being a physiotherapist, Lisa from Eastbound Medical Clinic on being a nurse, Jane (former McKinnon Student) from East Boundary Veterinary Practice on being a veterinary nurse and Damian on being a vet. 

Therese Sweeney 

Head of Science