Science, Technology, and Engineering

Communicating with the Specialist Team

We look forward to partnering with you in 2023, and welcome your input:

Hayley Oliver (Science, Technology, and Engineering)  Hayley.Oliver@education.vic.gov.au

Welcome back to Term 3. Hopefully you were able to find some warmth over the holidays or curl up somewhere and get warm! 

It’s shaping up to be an exciting term in the Science classroom already. Last term the students were given the choice to either study Earth Science or Space Science, the majority chose Earth Science. They then were able to give me some ideas about HOW they wanted to learn about their curriculum areas, this term. This then meant that the students in both Grade 5/6 and Grade 3/4 have helped to design this unit and have begun working on a term long project. But before the project was introduced, we had to have some messy, hands on fun first and both levels had the chance to make a thunderstorm in a jar! 

Level 5/6 Learning

The level 5/6 students have begun working on a project, where they have to investigate a natural disaster of their choice and present it in the most creative way they can. They will spend the next few weeks investigating their disaster and find out why it happens and then work out how they would like to present their disaster (hopefully in action). There have already been some really interesting ideas floating around, from building and exploding volcanoes, demonstrating and Earthquake in action, global warming, landslides etc. The level of enthusiasm and engagement towards this project has been really pleasing, already in these early stages. 

Level 3/4 Learning

The 3/4 students are also studying Earth Science this term, but rather than looking at geological changes that cause natural disasters, they will be studying landscapes and how they change after a significant weather event has occurred. They will spend the next few Science lessons, finding out information about how their chosen landscape might change if it was hit with an extreme weather event and then they will have a go at building a model of their landscape, before and after the event. I have been so impressed with the enthusiasm the 3/4 students have shown towards this task and some of their ideas have been amazing. We have students studying actual past events like Pompeii and the Boxing Day Tsunami in Thailand, to possible future events, like New York sinking. I am so excited to see what the students can come up with and present at the end of the term.

ROBOTICS

During the year through the Science agency sessions, a group of year 5/6 students have been working hard to build and program EV3 robots to music. This has been for an upcoming RoboCup competition, where the students will compete against other schools in the Novice On Stage division. Our first competition is Friday 4th August. This is our very first Robotics competition and we are so excited for the experience. We have two teams entering this first competition and we wish them all the best!