Senior Secondary

Year 12 Chemistry Excursion

The KIOSC excursion was an amazing opportunity to enhance our chemistry knowledge in a real-life lab. We were given a scenario of an 'unknown substance' found in a forensic investigation and given the task to identify and quantitate the substance. We did this using many analysis techniques we learned about and put them together to determine the final substance (caffeine). Working off campus and being directed by someone who had worked in the field of chemistry for many years taught me that there is so much more to careers than the label 'chemist'. It was a wonderful way to see what careers in chemistry can involve and how they work, as well as seeing real-life applications for what we learn about.

Kiara Vandenberg

Year 12 Student

Last Friday our chemistry class went to KIOSC to learn about and use high tech equipment to analyse and quantise an 'unknown drug substance'. The excursion was a lot of fun, as we were able to deepen our knowledge and understanding of interpreting data from infrared spectrums, mass spectroscopy, NMR and carbon NMR, and HPLC data to find the molecular structure of an 'unknown drug substance' (caffeine), as well as its purity. It was amazing to experience a real world application of the science we are currently learning about in class, and to hear of all the incredible work opportunities that we have outside of school and university from the enthusiastic instructor we had!

Eva Johnson

Year 12 Student

Term 3 VCAL Project

This term in Personal Development Skills, our key project is centred around understanding the challenges of older people in our community. We are partnering with Kirkbrae Presbyterian Homes in Kilsyth in order to make a positive contribution in the community and learn from the residents. It is a very enriching experience for our young people to engage with those in a different life stage and understand more about what life is like for them. 

As part of the project the students have already researched issues that concern the elderly, and prepared simple and engaging activities they could do with them. This week some students did puzzles, and others did craft and drawing while chatting to them. It was lovely to see young people engaging positively with older generations, and it really did push them out of their comfort zones. We will continue working on this and visit again next week, hopefully refining the activities that we do and gaining a bit more confidence in starting conversation with the residents. 

Nicky Joiner

VCAL Coordinator

Year 10 Road to Zero Physics Excursion

On Tuesday our Physics class went on an excursion to 'The Road to Zero' Physics program at the Melbourne museum. We started off by watching a video about the importance of road safety and their goal of reaching zero deaths on our roads by 2050. This was followed by going into an interactive room with a 3-minute virtual reality experience where students travel in a car from 1970 to 2055 to see how everything changes over the years. We were given special cards with our names and photos so that you could tap onto activities to give a more personalised experience. We went around seeing how the human body withstands different crashes, doing road safety quizzes and learning about what parts in a car are most important for surviving an accident on the road.

I particularly enjoyed it when we got into groups and did a contest about speed friction and stopping distances. Overall, this excursion was really enjoyable, and it helped a lot with extending our physics knowledge on speed velocity and acceleration. 

Charlotte, Year 10 Student

The Road to Zero Physics excursion gave us students a creative, out-of-school opportunity to engage with basic physics experiments while also applying our knowledge about motion, speed, and velocity which we are currently learning in class and putting it into practice. The excursion included basic physics concepts too easy for our science class filled with smart physicists, and mainly surrounded the topic of Road Safety. Activities like creating solutions for safer road environments, safety components in cars and many more allowed us to experience how physics and road safety can be useful to know and learn. 

The virtual reality activities and car crash scenes were particularly enjoyable and made my experience at Road to Zero interesting and useful.

Irin, Year 10 Student