Science 

What's Happening in Science

Year 10 Biology and Psychology elective students recently travelled to KIOSC at Swinburne University of Technology to get started on of their major learning activities for semester 2. 

‘Bees with Backpacks’ is a multidisciplinary program examining the effect of the local environment on bee populations. KIOSC and Scoresby Secondary College collaborate with the CSIRO and the Department of Education and Training during the project.

Bees with Backpacks refers to manually fitting bees with high-tech micro-sensors (which happen to look like cute little backpacks). The micro-sensors pick up data on where the bees travel, how long they spend there and what they do. Data61 and CSIRO’s provide the micro-sensor technology, tag the bees and allow students to work with the data.

During their introductory visit to KIOSC, students used robots to simulate bee movement and data collection. As the project progresses, students will learn what environmental factors are important in promoting bees in the environment and they create a project to promote and monitor the health of local bees. They will be collecting and analysing a wide range of data including bee movements and foraging patterns.

Mr John Healy 

Head of Science