STEM
March is the month of maths at AHS! We will celebrate the importance of maths in our life and future careers with a Pi week next week, as Thursday is the 3/14 Pi day! Maths competitions will run galore with the French Kangourous des Maths as well as the English Kangourous sans Frontières. Past papers will be distributed online to parents and students for practice.
WOMEN LEADERSHIP BREAKFAST ON ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION:
This breakfast held on Friday 1st March was an excellent opportunity for our young female students to network with professional experts in the field of environmental conservation. How inspiring! Here are some of the key highlights and impressions from Angelika L. and Sasha F. in Year 12 who attended it:
On Friday, we had the chance to go to the Women In Conservation breakfast. We learnt about a whole range of different aspects about conservation. This includes political, economic and social aspects. There were over 500 people in attendance, both in person and online, which was an amazing turn out but it did mean we couldn’t meet everyone.
We were lucky enough to talk to Corinne Proske, the CEO for Trust for Nature, who kindly donated the tickets to Auburn High School. She co-hosted with Rachel Lowry, the CEO of Bush Heritage Australia. They were both incredibly engaging and friendly presenters, and introduced us to ‘Swifties for the Swift Parrot.’ The Swift parrot is an endangered bird from Tasmania that they are focusing some of their conservation efforts on. They had amazing Taylor Swift inspired t-shirts to spread the message, that we were both very jealous of!
The keynote speaker at this breakfast was Anna Rose, the CEO of Environmental Leadership Australia. She has written books, starred in a documentary, and founded environmental groups such as the Australian Youth Climate Coalition, and much much more. Although we didn’t get a chance to meet her, she was inspiring. She is so accomplished, and made it sound like we too could be as successful as her, with her activism starting in High School when she created a sustainability club for her school, then she just went up from there.
In one of our breaks, we met Sharelle Polack. She works for World Wildlife Fund, and was genuinely curious about what we wanted to do in the future. So, we got to talk about working in the field and she answered any questions we had. We also spoke to Alysha Van Eyk, who works for Bush Heritage in ‘seeding the future.’ She spoke to us about internships and programs we could do. On the whole, this experience was so useful to us. Every single woman we met was kind and knowledgeable, and really helped us learn about what a career in conservation could look like. Having a career in STEM, in conservation in particular, now feels so much more attainable after hearing everyone’s stories, and we are so grateful to have been there!
Having a career in STEM, in conservation in particular, now feels so much more attainable after hearing everyone’s stories, and we are so grateful to have been there!
STEM KEY DATES: What’s on in March?
Friday 15th of March: Registrations have been extended to next Friday for the maths Competition Kangourou sans Frontières to take place Tuesday 26th and Wednesday 27th of March. This competition is open to all students from year 7 to year 10. Click HERE to register.
Pi Week : We will celebrate everything mathematical during the week of 11th March with incursion events full of maths puzzles and fun activities, open to the whole school.
Friday 22nd of March: Combining the “Semaine de la Francophonie” and the “Semaine des Mathématiques”, French immersion students and French binational students will sit in the Kangourous de Maths competition (in French).
Tuesday 26th and Wednesday 27th of March: All registered students will sit the Kangourous sans Frontières Competition (in English). This is a voluntary event.