Scholarship News

STEM Scholarship

The STEM Scholarship group has been busy so far this year. Our major project that we are working on is called Raising Rarity. This is a program established by the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria that aims to protect rare and endangered native plant species. 

Our role in this program is to carefully grow the target species (leucochrysum albicans subspecies tricolour), collect data on its progress and ultimately harvest the seeds it produces. Harvesting the seeds and returning them to the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria will ensure that this species will survive in the future.

So far, the STEM scholars have attended a species discovery day where they learned all about their target species. This included learning how to correctly collect data and using microscopes to better understand the plant. We have also constructed garden beds at the Scotsburn campus which means we are ready for the arrival of our rare plants.

Our other projects include creating rockets that are fuelled by chemical reactions as well as designing other projectiles, developing our coding skills and crafting a shiny aluminium ball out of tin foil.