Last week was our 2023 National Science Week celebrations. The week was fun-filled with a range of events to cater for a variety of interests, with the Science Week theme in mind – Innovations: Powering Future Industries.
Chalk Art Competition and picnic lunch on Monday saw our student artists compete for house points. Dragon dancers set up the celebrations mood. Every house did amazing chalk-work, however winning art was by Aqua, with Ventus coming 2nd, Terra 3rd and Ignis 4th.
Monday afternoon saw the brightest minds assembled to compete in the much-anticipated QAHS National Science Week Trivia Competition. The event, which has become a tradition, saw students from all grades battle wits, testing their scientific knowledge in a thrilling contest. The competition consisted of six rounds across all corners of science knowledge. Questions were designed to challenge and engage.
Among the standout performances, the team "Executive Bartenders" comprising Aiden Jackson, Beau Zhang, Amy Clinton, and Yaj Borra became the stars of the competition. Their incredible teamwork, quick decision-making, and in-depth understanding of various scientific fields helped them secure the coveted first prize. A heartfelt thanks to our volunteers Greta Douglas and Katelyn McSween who assisted with the set up of the event and tallied the scores throughout the competition.
Keynote speaker, Dr. Peter Bernus, Associate Professor in School of ICT at Bond University officially opened our science week celebrations during our whole-school assembly on Tuesday. His presentation on 'Innovation and Artificial Intelligence" was thought-provoking and motivating to our future innovators. In attendance was Dr. Andrew Pearson, Program Director – Bachelor of Medical Science at Griffith University, who presented awards to our students alongside Mrs Rebgetz. A total of 68 high-achieving awards were presented to students, including two High Distinctions in Big Science Competition, two High Distinctions in Junior Science Olympiad and 58 Silver CREST Awards. Our Peter Doherty Award recipient (Samuel Brown) and 8 Gold CREST Award recipients (Gauri Bhandari, Mia Bergh, Flynn Edwards, Jordan Klos, Cara Korhonen, Song Qi Loh, Nitara Nirthanan & Leyla Suljic) were also recognised, with these awards to be presented during our Academy Awards next term. Students also undertook some amazing Sports Science fitness testing during lunch break on Tuesday.
In the afternoon our Science Officers and teachers alog with the Year 10 STEM mentors ran a Mini Science Survivor for Year 6 students from seven local primary schools. Our 2022 Alumna Linda Yang returned to once again MC the event. Students engaged in science survivor activities including Cranes, Race Cars and Puzzle Throw. Two top teams battled for ultimate survivor, with 1st prize going to Mudgeeraba Creek State School, 2nd prize to Nerang State School and 3rd to Bellevue Park State School.
Pop-up science experiments using STEM Boxes from Australian National University were run by Year 10 STEM mentors during lunch time on Wednesday. Students laid back with popcorn and poppers in the Lecture Theatre on Wednesday afternoon to watch some of the winning films in the 2023 SCINEMA: International Science Film Festival. The highlight was an Australian film on Weird Oceans, with other films including New View on Cancer, Engineered Cancer Killers and Molecular Chirality.
Thursday was again a very busy day of Science Week. Year 11 and 12 Group 4 Extended Essay students enjoyed lunch with their EE supervisors, Alumni and Griffith University researchers, before all the Year 11 students were introduced to the scientific research process by our CREST Gold Award recipient Alumni, Garlok Lu, Thien Tran, Ellen Im and Stanley Wey. Students then listened in small groups to nine Griffith University researchers, one Bond University researcher (and QAHS Alumni Carly Hudson), one QAHS teacher (Dr. Carrie Lovitt) and four QAHS Alumni. Presentations by our researchers ranged in topics from Investigation towards developing an mRNA-based cancer vaccine, Identification of melanoma specific neoantigens, Combatting antimicrobial resistance, "Have an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out" - a quick tool kit for sniffing out nonsense, The journey of an electronic tool: from humble beginnings and serendipitous timing to online learning amidst a pandemic, Cancer drug discovery in the third dimension, Navigating the Pandemic's Impact on Mental Health: a Machine Learning Analysis of Gold Coast ED Data During COVID-19 (to name a few).
Year 10 students kicked off their Science Survivor House Challenge while navigating through innovation-theme-related activities including Drones, Lego Spaceship, Paper Planes, Wind Spinner, Solar Dozer, Puzzle Throw, Build-A-Bot, Cranes and Race Cars. Ms Trudy Newlove and her SOO team (Dr. Heike Mac and Mr Jake Peebles) put together these new innovative activities in this QAHS signature program - Science Survivor. It was intense competition with Aqua Team 10 winning Science Survivor and Ventus Team 9 coming in 2nd.
Our resident DJ, Wade Wang entertained us with his collection of music during lunch breaks and our front desk staff played sciencey songs in the mornings to get us started.
Two Year 10 students competed in the ANSTO's Science Week Hackathon over the week. These students competed in the Year 10 – Year 12 category made up of eleven teams. QAHS team of Jason Zhu and Aadi Rai did extremely well under the mentorship of Ms Jade Psychoulas. The Challenge for the students was to 'identify a problem in your school and relate to the students who experience it'. Jason and Aadi decided to design robotic arms to help students with limited physical abilities to do science experiments and other tasks. Their brief can be watched here.
Mr Sidney Hooker from Science-on-the-Go team of Griffith University conducted a science on Friday. There was a lot of controlled explosions and smoke from dry ice and liquid nitrogen filled up the corridor. To end our science week celebrations, Mr Mangal held a 3D printing workshop for students in the Library.
Thank you to all involved in helping to make this years National Science Week such a great success.
Anir Lal
HOD Science