Science News

Year 11 Psychology

Year 11 psychology students performed an eye dissection to examine the anatomy of a cow’s eye. This engaging practical provided a hands-on learning experience allowing students to use their prior knowledge to identify and label the structures of the eye. This was a valuable lesson full of excitement and enthusiasm.

Delanka Peiris

Year 11 Psychology Teacher

Engineering Workshop

During the holidays, we attended a Monash Engineering workshop over the course of 3 days run by experts across a range of engineering disciplines. 

In the “Civil Engineering” workshop, we designed, built and tested small scale bridges made from spaghetti and glue. Once completed the bridges were load tested to failure. The bridge with the highest strength-to-weight ratio won.

In the “Materials Science and Engineering” workshop, we learnt how new materials are being developed and how they will change our world.

In the “Resources Engineering and Environmental Engineering” workshop we learnt what resources we will consume in our lifetime and how renewable energy can make an impact on our future. We created a wind turbine which generated wind energy.

In the “Chemical Engineering” workshop we explored the physical and chemical wonders which power the chemical industries that make everything from hair gel to shoe polish and a whole lot in between.

In the “Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering” workshop we observed motorsports, unmanned aerial systems and bipedal robot demonstrations. We learnt how engineers harness the power of fire! We made a glider, drove a Formula-SAE race simulator, commanded a walking robot and took part in a pit stop challenge.

In the “Electrical & Computer Systems Engineering” workshop we constructed our very own electrical gadgets to take home. 

Overall, we learnt about the different types and fields of engineering and we hope to pursue engineering as a profession as the program offered many varied possibilities. We encourage all students to bring up the courage and take a step towards learning more about science engineering so that they may consider another career option.

Ines Gotmaker and Jay Trickey

Year 8C

Science Week

National Science Week, 2019, has blasted off into the stratosphere! The theme this year was ‘Destination Moon: More Missions, More Science’, as 2019 also marks fifty years since Neil Armstrong’s famous first step. We celebrated Science Week hugely at Glen Eira College, to encourage students to think creatively, innovatively, and continue to extend their interest in STEM. 

“This theme,” National Science Week says, “is a way for teachers and their students to discover past missions to the Moon and space programs that have solved some of the seemingly unsolvable problems—and current and future space programs, operations and missions.”

Glen Eira College ran a series of lunchtime events spanning the whole week. The program began on Monday with two exciting activities - science-themed anime (run by the Anime Club) and an Oreo moon phases challenge in room 108. Students were able to watch an anime series based around science, while others were hard at work creating sugary masterpieces. For the challenge, students were handed a sheet of paper depicting the phases of the moon and four Oreo biscuits. To successfully finish the task, the Oreos had to be scraped and sculpted, then placed on their corresponding picture and photographed. The artworks were quickly eaten once the challenge was complete!

The next activity, run on Tuesday, was a movie viewing in room 6, which highlighted some famous conspiracy theories and the people behind them. Students explored different aspects of the moon landing and which ones may have been faked. They delved deeper about the USA vs Soviet Union space race.

On Wednesday, a paper plane competition saw students’ creations take to the air as aerodynamics lessons combined with paper folding skill and competitive spirit.

Thursday lunchtime saw an origami workshop unfold in room 107, with students making colourful models of origami rockets and space shuttles. Students could choose to keep the models or donate them to be made into an origami mobile.

Year 7 also attended an incursion called “Launch to the Future! - A STEM Story”, described by National Science Week as “an exciting, fact filled, science sketch comedy presentation that focuses on how space programs and lunar science propel us into the future using STEM!”. The show focused around four main themes - ‘space science helps solve the unsolvable’, ‘innovation drives technology’, ‘space engineering helps design new solutions’, and ‘maths helps to drive the future’. The Year 7 students enjoyed the presentation, which was hands-on and engaging, as the presenters involved everyone in a fun, fact-filled experience.

We couldn’t let science week pass without potentially blowing something up, so on Friday we watched Metho Rockets and how they demonstrate Newton’s Laws. The Robotics Club also showcased how students have built and programmed a robot to autonomously navigate a course, including avoiding obstacles, going over rough surfaces, climbing up ramps. We could relate this to robots sent to outer space.

Wow! National Science Week 2019 was filled with awesome, engaging activities for all. The students learned about science as a human endeavour, and how to think outside of the box utilising their STEM skills. National Science Week has opened up our students to a whole new range of scientific possibilities.

Nina Gibbs and Harshitha Meenakshisundaram

Year 7B