Science 

Science Report

While it feels like we are in the middle of Term 2, our Year 10 and 11 students are near the end of their learning for Semester 1 and are preparing for their Semester 1 exams with some extensive revision of the whole semester of learning.

Year 11 students will soon transition into Unit 2 for their subjects, while our Year 10 students will be finishing their General Science unit and moving at the start of Semester 2 into their  elective science subjects.  These subjects are designed to focus on one of two halves of VCE science and students have chosen either the Biology and Psychology elective or the Physics and Chemistry elective. Both of these will feature some really interesting project based learning in Term 3.

For our Year 9 students, they have been developing their understanding of chemical science, with a strong focus on the reactions of acids and the products of different chemical reactions. They have investigated the neutralization of acids using bases, the reaction of acids with carbonates – a really famous reaction that is fundamental to a lot of cooking and food science. They also examined the corrosive effect of acids on metals in the context of acid rain. In one particular experiment, students exposed different metals to acids and examined the subsequent reactions (or lack of reaction in the case of copper). As you can see from this student’s results, the magnesium has been heavily corroded (or completely corroded in many cases) while the copper remains relatively unchanged.

Mr John Healy

Science Coordinator