Academic Excellence 

Australian Brain Bee Challenge

Did you know that information can travel around our brains at more than 430km per hour? Earlier this year, a group of Year 10 students competed in Round 1 of the Australian Brain Bee Challenge. In preparation, the students completed many online tasks to learn about the brain and its functions and about the field of neuroscience. They then put their knowledge to the test by completing a very challenging online quiz. Thank you to Mrs Donna Bunyan for invigilating the Round 1 quiz. 

The top four students have been invited to attend Round 2 of the competition at the University of Western Australia, where they will hear from professionals in the field of neuroscience and visit an anatomy laboratory, later this year. I know they will have a memorable day.

Congratulations to Ann Baiju, Brian Echeta, Cassie Latt, Vanshika Sen and Nicole Villanueva.

Australian Geography Competition

Last week, 110 of our Year 8 to 12 students participated in the Australian Geography Competition. Competing against over 720 schools and 73,000 students around Australia, the online quiz encompassed mapping skills and climate knowledge, amongst other topics. Let's hope we can top our excellent results last year. 

Year 7 to 9 Academic Excellence Program

In Term 1 we ran an Introduction to Academic Excellence Program. With an amazing turn out of 50 students attending our weekly meetings, the buzz in the room was fantastic. At our College assembly on Wednesday, 15 May, students received their Academic Excellence Certificate of Completion for completing the Term 1 Program.

During the term, students learnt about habits and how to improve a good habit or break a bad habit. They also researched types of bridges, famous bridges and forces that act upon the bridges. They then got into building their own bridges. 

Whilst there were some lovely looking bridges, we build them to test their strength. In other words, we build them to break them. Most groups built their bridges using popsticks and had varying degrees of success. Aleksy Nowak (Year 8), Landen Searle (Year 8) and Conner Searle (Year 7) built a bridge weighing just 293g and it held 31kg. Natalie Van Der Westhuyzen (Year 7), Byron Kerr (Year 7)and Ryan Jackson (Year 7)built a bridge weighing 467g and it held 37kg before breaking. Both teams did very well.

Another team had an idea to build their bridge using bamboo. Whilst it made the bridge quite a bit heavier coming in just under our 700g limit at 663g, it managed to hold a whopping 108kg and it didn't even break. We ran out of weights! Congratulations to Mateo van Heerwaarden (Year 8), Regan James (Year 10) and Liam Cruzana (Year 10) on their awesome effort. They each won a canteen voucher as their prize.

Our Academic Excellence Program is well and truly underway for this term. We gained some insight into the interesting topic of philosophy and have started to look at debating. Students are getting quite good at their rebuttals. We look forward to some great debates in the near future.

Mrs L Cardenia

(Academic Excellence Program Co-ordinator)