Year Eight 

Health and Physical Education

Year Eight Students in Physical Education have commenced our invasion sports unit. Students have looked at applying offensive and defensive strategies into modified soccer games. Students looked at how we can create space to assist in moving the ball down the field. In Health, Students have been examining cyber safety starting off with community safety. Students this week have looked at cyber bullying and how it impacts us. We have also inquired into the different types of bullying being verbal, physical, social and cyberbullying. Students also participated in Cross Country representing the school very well. We had a combination of Year Seven and Eight Students participating in the event. For Year Eight, Vanessa of 8A finished in the top 15 and will advance to the next round.

Food Technology 

The students have been very busy preparing and cooking a variety of stir-fry dishes. They were tasked with brainstorming and researching the origins of stir-fry dishes and the ingredients and cooking processes involved. In the first session, the students had the opportunity to make Pad Thai, a traditional street food from Thailand. They learned that preparation is key to cooking this type of meal. The second dish they cooked was Mee Goreng, a dish from Indonesia, which turned out to be the most popular among the two. The students also had the opportunity to make Pad See Ew, another Thai dish.

During the last session, the students cooked their own recipes for a healthy stir-fry. They either created their own dish or made modifications to their favourite stir-fry recipe. They utilised various ingredients to create different flavours, such as soy sauce, fish sauce, oyster sauce, chili, tamarind, brown sugar, lime, and more. Throughout the sessions, the students gained and refined many cooking skills, including knife techniques, sautéing, preparation, and presentation. Overall, they did a fantastic job!

Financial Literacy

Building upon their enterprising mindset, our Year Eight students delved deeper into the realm of entrepreneurial skills. They explored the shared characteristics and skills of successful entrepreneurs to thrive in the business world, such as resilience, adaptability, and effective communication. They learned to identify opportunities and take calculated risks. They brainstormed some potential business ideas and developed the drive and determination to turn their ideas into reality.  

Moving forward, our Year Eight students were encouraged to think critically and develop innovative solutions to real-world problems. They pitched an app idea and designed eye-catching logos. They explored the market segmentations and learned how to conduct surveys and identify target group to gather valuable insights, which would help them tailor their apps to meet the demands of their target customers. Through collaborative teamwork and effective time management, students executed their projects and showcased their innovative ideas and entrepreneurial mindset. 

Here are some students’ work in progress from Financial Literacy so far from Term Two:

Robotics and Coding

Year Eight coding elective students recently attended the Wyndham Tech School for AI Engineering activities. Collaborating in teams, Students learnt about Artificial Intelligence and used Machine Learning programs to train a computer to respond to different visual signs. They built robots and created attachments to harvest lettuces, modelling applications of automation in farming.

In class, Students are currently learning to code the micro:bit micro controllers in the Python language. Their first programs are harnessing the micro:bit's LED arrays to display patterns and graphics, and the inbuilt speakers to play music. Next, they will use this technology to consolidate their learning of coding loops.

Science

This term students have been working on a unit of Physics - focusing on Energy and Change. They first looked at Potential and kinetic energy and gained the understanding that potential energy can be stored and converted into many different types of kinetic energy, energy transformations.

Students then looked at Convection currents and participated in an experiment called 'Moving  Particles' which uses Potassium Permanganate, which turns water purple (and oxidises on your skin, turning brown, as a couple of us discovered), showed that as it was heated, the convection current pathway. Students are now using this information to find out what makes a good insulator and planning their own practical. 

The Eight Aces class have taken this a step further by  having to build a model of a house using only recycled materials and cost the materials needed to effectively keep the house warm and cool. 

Students have also been having a look at static electricity and series and parallel circuits. They used a Van der Graaf generator and then used balloons to demonstrate static electricity. 

English 

In English, Year Eight students have continued to explore the themes of the Hunger Games. They have been working on their Creative Response Assessments which require them to analyse how the Hunger Games explores social and political themes. They have been asked to consider why the author wrote the novel and what message she was hoping to convey. 

With the assessment task due on Friday, students will move on to using the Hunger Games as a mentor text when developing their reading comprehension skills with a focus on inferring and rephrasing.