STEM Committee
National Science Week 2022: Glass (More than meets the eye)
On the week of the 15th of August, Lyndale celebrated National Science Week. The theme for 2022 was Glass 'More than meets the eye' and the Stem committee organized a number of events to celebrate.
Monday: Kahoot Quiz and Scinema
On Monday, students celebrated with a Kahoot which covered a large range of topics related to glass and science.
Congratulations to the top 3 competitors:
1st place: Year 11 Girls
2nd place: Jacinta Dray
3rd place: Ruby Fizgereald and Larni Milne
A Scinema playlist was also held during lunchtime in STEM. Students were welcomed to watch a series of short science videos including:
The Salamander’s saviour (approx. 13 mins) | Information about an unusual species of salamanders, which have the power to regenerate their own bodies, including their spinal cords, and the fight to preserve them as they are under threat from climate change and habitat destruction |
| The cell factory (aprox 4 mins 45 s) (animation) | Analogy for cells and viruses, references to COVID and COVID vaccines |
| Shattering stars (approx. 12 mins 30s) (animation) | Story of an Indian astrophysicist, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, who discovered the limit of mass of a white dwarf, but his ideas were rejected at the time by English scientists as they questioned accepted knowledge |
| Seek and Destroy (approx. 6 mins) | Interview with a young female scientist from Pakistan who is working in Genova on the Future Circular Collider, the goal of which is to push the energy and intensity frontiers of particle colliders, with the aim of reaching collision energies of 100 TeV, in the search for new physics. |
Stars of Stone (5 mins 40s) (animation) | Short introduction to crinoids, ancient organisms related to sea stars, that are still living in the sea today |
Tuesday: Sandcastle Competition
There are a number of materials that can be used to make glass, one of the more commonly known one is sand. Tuesday celebrated glass with a sand castle competition. Students tip toed through the mud over to the volley ball court and constructed sand castles.
Well done to all that participated however there could only be one winner...well in this case it was the combined effort of Samr Nimir, Marjina Namdar, Milica Petkovic and what looked like a noodle cup.
Winners
Winners
Wednesday: Marble guessing jar
DO you ever feel like your losing your marbles well there is a good chance they ended up in our marble guessing jar. Some students took some wild guesses, while some students used maths to try to solve how many marbles were there. After counting and recounting the total number of marbles in the jar was 336. Congratulations to Khalida Gawhari who had the closest guess of 329!
Friday: Science week bake off
Finally Science week was celebrated with our annual bake off, where students put their cooking and artistic skills to the test with mind blowing results.
Well done to the finalists:
1st place: Ruby Fizgerald - Geode cake
2nd place: Larni Milne - Sand castle cake
3rd place: Laraib Ayub - Iridescent glass explosion
1st place
2nd place
3rd place
1st place
2nd place
3rd place
Thank you to all staff and students who participated in the Science week activities. The STEM committee is looking forward to next year's Science week which will be yet another exciting event.
Click on the resource booklet to learn more about glass and activities:
Paper Plane Competition
A belated celebration of aviation day took place on the 14th of September. Aviation day is celebrated every year on Friday the 19th of August and celebrates the development of aviation. Many students and teachers came to show off their paper plane making skills and competed to see whose plane could go the furthest.
Congratulations to our top plane makers:
1st place: Eann Jasison (7C)
2nd place: Ty Tang (10F)
3rd place: Mahdi Hossain (12B)
4th place: Mr Heurtau
5th place: Nish Patel (7C)
Watch the whole event here:
Well done to those who participated and good luck next year.
Christopher Andersen
Science Teacher