Science News

The Year 11 Biology class enjoyed a day out in the wild when we took the school bus and went searching for the rare Pomaderris cocoparrana plant that is endemic to a restricted area of New South Wales and found only at Mt Bingar. The first visit was to the town library. Students can access the state library scientific journals using their local library membership and the librarians showed the students how to search in the state library databases.

 The students also had a short introduction to the study facilities at the library for group study sessions. Then on to Mt Bingar.It wasn’t hard to pick the Pomaderris cocoparrana and they seemed to love living on the escarpment with shallow soil, wind and sun. They were considered extinct until this very small population was found existing right here in our backyard in the 1990’s. It provides a wonderful opportunity for our students to examine the abiotic and biotic factors in this little niche and research the adaptations that have proven beneficial for the survival of this species. It also helps understand the evolution of the plant.

We then went for a quick visit to the wetlands at Lake Wyangan. The 

Lake was an old gypsum mine and students could understand the run off of excessive nutrients from the surrounding farms that contribute to the algal blooms that cause problems of toxicity and eutrophication. It was a great day!

We welcome Mrs Anneka Morrison to the science department. We are so fortunate to

 have a team of well qualified scientists to educate our young people. Mrs Morrison will be teaching Year 7, 8 and 9 science and is very well educated in Agriculture, Biology and Chemistry. 

Mrs Morrison grew up here in Griffith and attended Catholic High School in the early 2000’s. Her mum has been a long standing teacher at St Patrick’s School and her Dad is the Pharmacist and Business owner of Dodd’s Pharmacy. We are so very grateful that she has agreed to join our team.

We are now past the middle of this term and in the run up to the reports.Hope you all have a fantastic long weekend

Best wishes

Esther Dumbleton (Science Leader of Learning)