John Monash Science School “Little Scientist Program ” Session 4

The four of us ( Albin, Nupur, Sathee and I) participated in a program run by the year 10 students at John Monash Science School. This week at John Monash Science School we learnt about the science design process. We participated with our school group and talked about the process.

Firstly, we listened to the teacher who told us that the science design process consists of thinking about a problem to brainstorm, then developing a model. The teacher gave us an example of how to make use of the design process. It was about how to grow a sunflower efficiently. We learnt that the environment can change the final result of an experiment and that only one variable should be changed at a time. This allows us to find out the difference without any interference from the other variables.

Our group discussed and decided to do an experiment on how to kill bacteria effectively. We brainstormed together and discovered that honey, ginger and salt usually kills bacteria. We made the decision that we will need to grow some bacteria. Our group will need to talk to Mrs Evans at school, to see if she will help us, by providing us with microscopes and other science equipment to preserve the bacteria.

After we had brainstormed our research assignment, we went and watched a special experiment which used acid and dry ice. We learnt that acids that are weak are alkaline based and stronger acids are acidic. We also learnt that dry ice mixes differently when you use different amounts of dried ice and when you place it in a lot of dry ice, it dissolves quickly and makes fog like in the movies.

By Sanjaya

School Curriculum Day

A reminder to all families that next Tuesday 17th of September is a pupil free day. The staff will be participating in a professional development day focusing on School Wide Positive Behavior Support presented by our School Wide Positive Behaviour Coach, Jo Brayden.

Fete News

We continue to be in countdown mode for our 2019 School Fete. If you are available to help out on the day can you please have a look in the attached document and click on the link to volunteer.

Thank you to all of the families that have already made donations of soft drink (1.25 litres) in the past week. We still require more bottles, so there is still time to deliver them to school before the term 3 school holidays commence.

School Review

Our final school review day was held on Monday 9th September and we are very grateful to the school principals, Debbie and Heidi who gave up their time at their schools to be members of our review panel and to be our challenge partners. They were able to provide many insightful suggestions based on their many years of experience in education.

We would also like to thank Aaron Sudholz, Syndal South's School Council President for rearranging his work schedule to participate in two full days of the review. His private industry perspective was also extremely interesting and of benefit to our school.

We look forward to writing our new 2020-2024 strategic plan next term, using the recommendations provided by the school reviewer and the panel, ready to implement from the beginning of 2020.

ENVIRONMENT NEWS