Junior School News

National Science Week:

Yr8 ‘Game Changers and Change Makers in Biomedical Science Program’ at Monash University

On Wednesday 15th August, a group of 18 Year 8 students had the opportunity to be involved in a Science program with a number of other schools, that allowed students to be immersed into the world of biomedical research. They were given three rotations and a talk from Dr Karla Hutt, who is a Scientist who leads the Development and Stem cells program.

The rotations involved measuring lung function, the science behind lung disease, and also, working with DNA to solve a crime forensically.

This experience was extremely worthwhile as it gave our students an understanding of the background work that goes on in research to provide doctors with the lost effective treatments. The teachers, Ms Kathryn McDonald and Mr Danny Van Vliet, also enjoyed it immensely and were proud to have accompanied such an interested group of students to Monash university.

Year 9 Monash University Excursion

Monash University is a public research university based in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1958, it is the second oldest university in the State of Victoria.

Set in Clayton, Monash University sits as the largest university in Australia in terms of student numbers. Being lucky enough to have two of its awesome students take us for a tour around the campus was really a great learning opportunity. The day revolved around learning what the campus has to offer, locations of different parts of the university but most importantly we discussed careers and potential pathways, thoroughly fitting our current topic in Learning For Life.

The tour covered: sporting facilities, engineering facilities, medical facilities and teaching/education facilities. We also got to see the student accommodation and the restaurants available (which made the thought of living on campus very appealing). 

After the tour, we gathered as a group and discussed our thoughts on careers and built our knowledge on how we were to get where we wanted. We discussed: the possible directions we could take based on the things that we like, we got some insight into what other people were studying and we discussed overseas learning exchange.

Overall I learnt a lot about what Monash has to offer and about how I can get to where I want to be no matter where I am at the time.

Sheridan Guy 9E

Year 8 Student wins Gold in Karate

Lia Kalek has proudly represented Victoria in the Australian Karate Federation National Championships 2018 on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland. She won Gold (1st place) in the  kumite team and 4th place in the individual kumite. 

Parliament House Excursion

In preparation for our upcoming EXCEL Challenge Day, 9E went on an excursion to Parliament House. Once we got past security, we met Sonya Kilkenny (member for Carrum) to start our tour. The building was beautiful with gold trims and grand statues. We visited the library, walked past the dining room, looked at the paintings of all the premiers and saw the offices of parliament members. A fun fact I learnt on the tour was that one out of three of the maces in Parliament House went missing one night and has never returned. There was, and still is, a $50,000 reward for finding it.

At the end of the tour, Sonya Kilkenny touched briefly on her career and why she chose to go into politics. She told us that she was lawyer but felt that she wanted her, and others ideas/thoughts shared and wanted a say in how things are run. So after a close election, she became a politician and got to the stage she’s at now.

Once we’d seen Parliament House, we were lucky enough to be able to sit in on Question Time. Question Time is the time when all politicians get together to discuss issues and politics. I found that during this time there was a lot of yelling with politicians shouting ‘rubbish’ to the opposition and ignoring what they were saying. Despite this they did raise a few important issues. These were about help for women during pregnancy (especially teenage pregnancies), the education system, tertiary education and the train system.

It was a very insightful but different excursion and I think it helped me decide that politics is not for me.

Jane Butcher 9E