Last week, we celebrated the 2026 National Science Week. The week was fun-filled with a range of events to cater for a variety of interests, with the Science Week theme in mind – Seeds of Science: Nurturing knowledge for all.
Sausage sizzle lunch on Monday was an excellent start to the week. Student artists also competed for house points in the painting competition. Ventus was judged as having the best artwork earning 100 points, followed by Ignis with 80 points, Terra with 60 points and Aqua with 40 points. The Brain Break Science Trivia after school on Monday was very popular with many teams competing. Shuma & friends from Aqua won the first prize and 100 house points, Thenuli from Aqua won second prize and 80 house points, Miro from Terra won third prize and 60 house points and Palm Beach Team from Ventus won 4th place and 40 house points.
Keynote speaker during Tuesday's assembly was Dr. Montana Samantzis, Researcher at Queensland Brain Institute and QAHS alumna of 2015 . Dr. Samantzis' presentation on her research and the science week theme was thought-provoking and inspiring to students considering research. In attendance were Associate Professor Andrew Pearson and Professor Andrew Bulmer, from Griffith University, who helped Mrs Rebgetz and Dr. Samantzis present awards to our students. 43 CSIRO Silver CREST Awards, three UK Silver CREST Awards and five UK Gold CREST Awards were presented. Some other high-achieving awards were also presented. Griffith University and University of Queensland ambassadors were also recognised with badges, presented by Dr Pearson and Dr Bulmer.
After school, our STEM Mentors ran pop-up experiments for Year 6 students from 4 local primary schools, before our Science Officers and Year 11 University Ambassadors ran a Mini Science Survivor for those students in 6 teams. They engaged in science survivor activities and the two top teams battled for ultimate survivor, with 1st prize going to Ashmore State School and the 2nd prize to Benowa State School.
14 Pop-up science experiments were set-up by STEM Mentors during lunch time on Wednesday, which engaged our student community very well. After school, we hosted the SCINEMA Australian Film Festival in the Library.
Thursday was again a very busy day of the Science Week. Year 11 & 12 Science EE students mingled over subway lunch with EE supervisors, alumni and university and industry researchers. Year 11 students then moved around and listened in small groups to 23 presenters at 18 stations from Griffith University, Gold Coast University Hospital, GC Public Health Unit, Queensland University of Technology, Bond University, ABC Training, Tempe Consulting and QAHS alumni (Garlok Lu, Thien Tran, Sara Alaei, Kelly Zhou, Dante Pellegrino, Harima Ali and Ellen Im).
Year 10 students kicked off their Science Survivor House Challenge while navigating through science week theme related activities. The SOO team (Ms Trudy Newlove, Mrs Montana Bennetts and Mr Jake Peebles) put together these new innovative activities in this QAHS signature program we call Science Survivor.
Six STEM Ambassadors went across to Griffith University and ran Hands-on Chemistry Fun workshops to 25 Year 4–6 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students for most part of the day.
Students undertook some amazing sports science fitness testing during lunch break on Friday. Year 10 science students displayed their Biology and Physics projects in the Science Fair, with displays filling all of the upstairs labs. This was quite popular, with all year 10 and year 11 students attending, and gave students the opportunity to communicate science on the topic of their investigation.
Anir Lal
Head of Department - Science