2026 Year 8’s GTAC Incursion

By Abhirami and Indigo, 8T3

This past week, all Year 8 classes have gotten the fantastic opportunity to go to the Gene Technology Access Centre (GTAC), each class for 100-minute sessions. The students were told to bring samples that they thought were interesting. Students brought a wide variety of objects to examine; from moth wings and sea urchins to dried out scabs (with puss!) and mouldy cheese. This was because we would be examining these samples using real electron microscopes! It was really new and exciting to have the opportunity to use such high-quality technology, and big machines to examine the tiny world. These microscopes have the capacity to magnify many tens of thousands of times. A number of high-end optical microscopes were available too.

This was all possible because they had developed a program just for University High School students. GTAC is a resource for all Victorian Government schools, even though it is located on University High School grounds. However, GTAC being so close to us does give us the advantage of being able to participate in programs such as this. This program was developed by real scientists. Many work at GTAC and several were researchers who came in to assist with the program. The Science education team at GTAC that made this possible are Tony Chiovitti, Richard Bader, Matt Bird, Autumn Bricker, Duncan Goddard, Chris Szwed, and Jacinta Duncan, joined by assisting scientists from various research centres: Alex, Asha, Ashley, Markus, Michael, and Millicent.