Year 12 Biology

Recently, the Year 12 Biology class visited the Gene Technology Access Centre (GTAC) in Parkville to participate in their responding to pathogens and generating immunity program. This is something that schools work very hard to secure a place in and so to have two programs booked for our students this year is fantastic!

It was an early start with our meeting point being the Don Road bus stop at 7:15am. From there we travelled to Lilydale and after a train and tram ride we finally arrived at GTAC for our 9:30 am start.

The students were introduced to their PHD mentors and participated in the interactive introduction activities.

Throughout the day, they were guided through two experiments with their mentors and given the opportunity to work with scientific equipment that is generally only seen in universities and professional laboratories.

Students were required to complete and evaluate the results of their experiments and justify the conclusions they’d developed as a group.

Lunch at Melbourne University gave the students an insight into the type of tertiary environment they might experience after high school and provided an opportunity to discuss their investigation results.

Overall, it was an extremely valuable and busy day, with the students consolidating their knowledge of the immune system and its response to invading pathogens.