Girls in Physics day
A group of year 10 students attended lectures, workshops and interviews for the Girls In Physics Day at The University of Melbourne. The students began the day with a lecture on current, groundbreaking research that enables a closer than ever before look at genetic material. They then participated in an interview with Dr Suzie Sheehy, a prominent Australian physicist that had recently released a popular science book. Ava asked a great question which earned her a copy of Suzie’s book.
The workshop that they attended allowed them to make a holographic image of a car, in which they set up a laser and a holographic plate. To do this they had to read instructions and set the equipment up in a precise way.
We visited two different optics labs in which the researchers explained their experiments and equipment. Students asked excellent questions to further understand the research that the physicists were doing here at the university.
Later in the day students attended an interactive lecture on electromagnetism. Zara, Skye, and Olivia made it to the leaderboard on the Electromagnetic quiz.
The last event of the day was a panel with three physicists at various stages of their career. Here is Olivia on that panel:
We were extremely fortunate to have three amazing women in physics, Victoria, Kate and Isabelle, be a part of a panel interview. Each woman was from a different stage and area of their field/career.
- Victoria is currently undergoing her Physics undergraduate degree at Melbourne University.
- Isabelle after completing her Medicine degree and working as a doctor for 2 years, is now in the process of completing her PhD in physics, specialising in quantum computers.
- And lastly Kate has already completed her PhD and is currently working in industry, improving BOM’s prediction of the weather.
These women were absolutely incredible and blew everyone away with their academic capabilities.
They gave us advice that we should pick VCE subjects based on what we enjoy and actually want to learn rather than easy subjects, as we are more likely to do well in subjects we enjoy.
On top of that they added that there are many different roads to get to a place and inspired us with anecdotes of the struggles they have overcome in order to experience the level of success in physics.
Everyone walked away from the panel interview very impressed to say the least!
Olivia A (year 10)
Ms Dahli Briedis - Physics teacher