Words From Our Director

I hope that everyone is taking care during this time and finding moments to enjoy the sunshine as the weather warms up.We have had a very productive fortnight at the Whittlesea Tech School, celebrating National Science Week, and enjoying the many collaborative partnerships that are forming in aid of providing authentic learning experiences and support for our young people.The Term 3 holidays will see the launch of our Entrepreneurship program and The Lab online camp. We are thrilled to be collaborating with the City of Whittlesea to offer a 'Smart Cities' after school program for secondary school students in our region in Term 4. Until we have the opportunity to say hello in person, stay safe and healthy everyone!

Sandra McKechnie

Director Whittlesea Tech School

Tech School Highlights

2020 National Science Week Recap

Rosetta Tomorrow TinkerCAD session

During Science week and our Rosetta Tomorrow challenge we put on a Live TinkerCAD session. During this session we went through a brief introduction to TinkerCAD followed some more advanced features until we built a detailed family dinner. If you're interested in learning a bit of TinkerCAD yourself check it out.

Rosetta Tomorrow Winner!

We also have a winner for the Rosetta Tomorrow challenge that ran through science week. Great work by all those involved, if you're interested in trying it out the challenge is still available at bit.ly/RosettaTomorrow.

Celebrating Careers

In case you missed it, last week we ran a social media campaign celebrating science-related career paths. The campaign aimed to showcase science by celebrating the people that are at the centre! When developing our programs, we reach out to industry partners to help us build case studies that improve student’s empathy towards a topic. In our most recent Design Challenge and Inquiries, we collaborated with a number of partners that were able to share their insights. To read more on what they shared with us, check out the interview tiles below or read the interviews in full via the links below.

https://www.banyulenillumbiktechschool.vic.edu.au/category/national-science-week-2020/

Introduction to Entrepreneurship

We are excited to invite your students to participate in our Introduction to Entrepreneurship program as part of the Victorian Challenge and Enrichment Series.This is a free extension program for high ability students in years 8-12 from Victorian government schools to grow an idea, into a business. You will find further information in the flyer image below including dates and registration information

Use this link to Register:

https://studentstartup.org.au/student-application/

Partner School Highlights

Teacher Story

Tech School collaboration allowed students to complete Year 12 research investigation remotely.

As the 2020 school year dawned, none of us were aware of all the challenges that lay ahead, starting with the disruption of regular classes and inability to carry out laboratory-based experiments and eventually moving onto online classes. Prior to all this during the previous year, we had established good links with Whittlesea Tech School to utilise their expertise and modern STEM facilities to promote collaborative learning.As some of you may be aware, a major component of Year 12 Science is on ‘an independent research investigation and communication’ via a scientific poster. As the year moved on, we were in a quandary as to how we were going to complete this aspect of the curriculum under these trying circumstances. Fortunately for us and in perfect timing, Whittlesea Tech School had established the “Medical Biotechnology Focus’ extension program and were very willing to share their data and expertise on antimicrobial compounds.This collaborative venture thus enabled our Year 12 students to successfully complete their ‘Independent Research Investigation and Communication’ project during the time of Covid-19. It’s been a pleasure working on this collaborative venture between Lalor North Secondary College Science Domain and the Whittlesea Tech School. A special note of thanks to Anne Jessup, Vhairi Mackintosh and Sandra McKechnie, we would have been at a loss if not for you guys at Whittlesea Tech School. We owe you big thank you."

Andrew Sivakumaran

Year 12 Biology Teacher

Lalor North Secondary College

To view the students works use this link:

https://padlet.com/MPTechSchools/WTS_LNSC

Interested in this program for your school?

As Andrew has demonstrated above, this program has been fully adapted to allow for remote delivery. This includes a suite of online resources to guide students through designing their own scientific investigation and secondary data based on published research to allow students to interpret and analyse real scientific data. If you're interested in this program for your class, get in touch.

Please email whittleseaTS@mp.edu.au to book your class

What's On Our Radar

Baseline Get Involved and be heard Online Program

This program is aimed to support young people to get involved, be active and be heard in the community, consult young people, plan community events and eventually plan and deliver the 2021 Youth Summit.

There will be a competition held to name the group with a prize to be won.

When:

Wednesdays from 23 September till 14 October 2020

Where:

Online using Microsoft Teams (a secure link will be provided on registration)

Who:

young people aged btw 12 to 17 years

Use this link to book:

https://baseline.as.me/YES

La Trobe University Career Options in Industry Panels

Registration now open

Over 20 sessions available via ZOOM brought to you by La Trobe University (Student Success).Come along to any of these industry sessions to hear from employers and alumni about their own career paths, their industry insights and opportunities for students and graduates in their sector or organisation. Examples include: “Career Options in Engineering”, “Career Options in IT and Mathematics”, “Career Options in Start Ups and social Enterprise”, “Career Options in Cyber Security and Data Analytics” to name a few.Learn about what skills and attributes employers look for in graduates. Ask a question. Find out what employers are looking for, and where this degree could take you.

When: 25 August to 20 October 2020

Where:

Online

Who:

Undergraduate and postgraduate students from all years

https://baseline.as.me/YES

TECx Online Design Challenge

TECx is the largest online design challenge for students studying Technologies education in Australia. The world is in crisis beyond Covid-19 and we need every secondary student to help solve many complex and critical problems that are highlighted by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).TECx gives students the opportunity to use the Design Process to tackle one of the following SDGs: Affordable & Clean Energy; Climate Action or Life Below Water

They will create an innovative product, service, environment or combination of these to help address the issues relating to their chosen SDG. They'll make a short video describing their design and submit it to DATTA Australia by Friday 24 September. On the Friday of D&T Week (16 October), the finalists' videos will be played, and students all over the country will vote for the winning solution.

The winner will receive a 3D printer, and have the opportunity to work with a team of professional experts to help take their idea to the next stage. For further details click the link below.

https://dattaaustralia.com/tecx/

Newsletters

Issue 19 · 04 Sep 2020

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