Student Achievements 

Neighbourhood Earth and State Library

Victorian High Ability Program offers opportunities and engagement in areas of interest.  Currently the year 7 and 8 student are studying space and flight as part of their science curriculum and have expressed interest within the program to attend science related event.  Neighborhood Earth is a combine NASA and Science exploration of the planets and space travel.  Also to assist student to understand the important resource we have we will be exploring the State library and in the future have a master class on how to research appropriately using their digital library and hardcopy library.

CRITICAL THINKING SUMMIT 

Last week, two teams of representatives from Year 8 and Year 10 took part in the Critical Thinking Summit at Scienceworks. They joined student leaders from around Victoria at a day-long summit to analyse the sneaky marketing tactics used by industries that produce products that are harmful to health and wellbeing, such as junkfood; alcohol; and gambling.  

Outraged by the effects this advertising has on young people, the delegates combined culture-jamming and critical thinking skills to create digital responses to the advertisements.  

They flipped the script and developed counter-advertisements in response to the issues

 and presented their ideas in augmented reality (AR). They used the app ‘Halo’ to create their own guerrilla-style marketing campaign and turned the advertisements against themselves. 

All of our representatives did an outstanding job and made our school proud.  

Two out of the top four designs chosen by the summit organisers were created by our teams! Congratulations Critical Thinkers! 

 Abbey Novak 

STEM Learning Specialist  

National Science Week (13-21 August) 

Science week helped us to discover the unsung hero of STEM – Glass! At the heart of the global transformation of communications, technology, medicine, transport and global sustainability is the sandy substance of glass. 

During the week the library showed some fascinating stories for our students on how glass has changed the world and discuss with their science teacher the many uses for glass. 

Students also participated in our Science Week quiz with the opportunity to win some science based prizes for the best responses within Junior (7 & 8), Intermediate (9 & 10) and Senior categories.  

Congratulations to our winners for each of the three sections as listed below. Hopefully they enjoy their prizes which will be delivered soon. 

Junior: Vismaya Rao 

Special mention to Mackenzie Rooney-Ho and Zahrah Moin and Roselyn Kleinman 

Intermediate: Kim Pillig; 

Special mention to Bri Chandler;  Natalie Wills and Bianca Jorgic 

Senior: Jake Jeffrey; 

Special mention to Tamara Devic”

Our quiz explored the wonders of Prince Rupert Drops, fibre optics for communication and greenhouse. We also learned about the origins of glass, the use of glass like materials by our First Nation people. We even addressed the question is glass a solid or liquid. 

Vismaya Kim Jake 

Junior Section Intermediate Section Senior Section 

More from Science Week...  

For our Year 8s Science Week kicked off with a presentation by Perform Education on 11th of August – “Window to the World”. 

The presentation was a cross curriculum Science/Tech/Humanities show, which consists of interactive science sketches that centred on different aspects of science history and technology with information, games and a fair bit of humour. Students learned about the every-day impact of glass, how it is driving a sustainable future, and the incredible impact of some of Australia’s famous scientists who have led the way. 

They learned that we can’t live the way we do without glass in its many forms – from fibre-optics, the internet and mobile phones, to its indispensable role in improving our quality of life and helping us live more sustainably in the future. BUT, did they enjoy themselves? We dared to ask………. 

Student comment’s 

“… it was very entertaining to watch and be a part of. everyone seems to have enjoyed watching it and everyone seemed to have a fun time. Everyone was having a laugh and enjoying the funny comments and actions happening in the performance.” Zoe 

“I enjoyed this incursion as they made it funny and more entertaining to watch, I learnt that there is glass all around your home or anywhere else if its a mirror, and microwave, picture frames and even your phones. I liked how they got volunteers from the audience to participate and have a laugh and learn at the same time.” Charlotte