Last week was Science Week! The theme for Science Week this year was Deep Blue: Innovations for the future of our oceans and it featured the establishment of the Blue Economy Cooperative Research Centre. “The theme embraces the innovative technologies, capabilities and skills needed to achieve economic, environmental and social sustainability of our oceans. It features insights and inquiries into workable solutions that generate healthy oceans, healthy economies and healthy communities.” (scienceweek.net.au) This quote captures what we are aiming to achieve in our students at Carroll College – insightful and inquiring problem solvers capable of producing workable solutions to real-world problems. I’m sure you will agree that developing young people with the passion, drive and skills to solve global problems is perhaps more pressing now than ever! During the week, I read a quote from American Astrophysicist and Science Communicator Neil DeGrasse Tyson: “We call it Science but in the end, it’s just unbridled curiosity.” What a wonderful capture of what it is to think like a scientist.

Our students have been inquiring into various aspects of the world about them.

Year 12 have been putting their inquiry skills to their final internal assessment test – the Trial HSC Exam. We wish them all the best as they now finish off courses and prepare for the big one – the HSC Exam. Perfect preparation produces perfection, as they say, so Year 12 students are encouraged to study and practise as much as possible in preparation for the final exam.

Year 11 are finishing up courses and preparing for the Yearly Exam. We wish them well as they get ready and encourage them to do their best.

Year 10 students have been inquiring into the mysteries of electricity and exploring the nature of waves. Did you know that the speed of light in a vacuum is 300,000 kilometres per second? Year 10 know this. A photon of light can travel around the world 7.5 times in a second. That’s fast!

Year 9 students have been inquiring into the mysteries of the atom and how atoms relate to elements and how elements are arranged into the Periodic Table. Did you know that at first in the universe there was only hydrogen gas and then the hydrogen atoms accumulated into stars and the hydrogen atoms fused together into about another 25 elements and then the stars exploded with enough force to fuse more atoms together to produce a further 67 elements. But that’s not all! Humans then continued this process in nuclear reactors and linear accelerators to produce another 26 elements! NASA scientist Carl Sagan once said “we are made of star stuff” and it is true. Some Year 9 classes have been discovering how the brain and the nervous system works and how the endocrine (hormone) system works. Did you know that the human brain is the most complex structure that scientists have ever discovered IN THE UNIVERSE? The most complex structure ever is inside your head!

Year 8 students have been understanding how electrons moving along a metal wire produces electricity and how electrical energy can be transformed into other forms of energy like heat which is much needed on this chilly day as I write this article. Year 8 have also been getting in touch with their inner-astronaut (who doesn’t want to go to space?) and exploring how rockets work. The rockets unit gives us an opportunity to look at what Science is and how it works, and learn how we gather data as evidence and interpret the data.

Year 7 students have been “at one with the force” (Star Wars reference for you) learning about contact and non-contact forces and different types of energy. They have also been learning about plants and have been fascinated watching their plants grow and investigating what plants need to grow. Did you know that the Earth is the only place in the universe that we know of that has plants? Or any life for that matter. Life is precious and this planet is precious which is why we need to know about it and learn to look after it.

Miss Herbert's Year 7 Science class enjoyed investigating forces by participating in an engineering challenge. Students designed and constructed parachutes to investigate how gravity and air resistance are used to safely deliver a load to the ground!