Great Scot September 2019 Great Scot 157_September 2019_ONLINE | Page 37

LEFT: EXPERIENCING
VIRTUAL REALITY
PODS. RIGHT: CLOSE
ENCOUNTERS WITH
OUR ANIMAL FRIENDS.
FLYING DRONES, SHOOTING
ROCKETS, EXPLODING CHEMICALS
AND A TRIP TO MARS
Flying drones, shooting rockets, exploding
chemicals, the best of science cinema,
the beauty of bad science, exploring the
properties of dry ice and an enthralling talk by
a potential traveller to Mars – all this and much
more made Science Week 2019 at Scotch
such an exciting and memorable time for boys
and staff. Science Week, Monday 12 to Friday
16 August, coincided with National Science
Week, and included the Science Oration on
the evening of 15 August. It was a very busy
week! Here are some of the highlights.
Dianne McGrath came to speak to our
Year 7 boys. Dianne is one of 28 Australians
shortlisted in the international Mars One
program (www.mars-one.com). If Dianne is
picked from the remaining 100 applicants
(from an initial number of more than 200,000)
she will be in the first group to head to Mars to
try and set up the first permanent civilisation
on the planet in 2031. This mission is ‘one
way’: Dianne won’t be coming back. Her
goal is to prove that we can live as a united
humanity in a completely sustainable world.
Dianne wowed both the Year 7 audience and
the teachers with her drive and commitment
to hard work and exploration.
Simon Gooding showed an excited group
of students the wonders of Chemistry on
Monday at lunchtime in the Lithgow Centre.
On Tuesday the Year 9 students were
lucky enough to be entertained by Nicholas
J Johnson and his ‘Bad Science Show.’
Students were led into looking at the world
critically to spot fake scientific news. Growing
up in a circus, Nicholas began performing at
six, and by age 12 he was in demand as a
professional magician performing at festivals
and events around Australia. By 18, he was
an award-winning science communicator,
winning the ACT Science Prize and working
with the CSIRO and Questacon.
Nicholas combines his passion for magic
and science as a science communicator,
entertainer and expert in deception, working
to uncover con artists. This was a highlight for
many boys.
Our Year 8 boys were taken through an
interactive and fun wildlife show, as part of
their regular Science class this week. This
followed the reproduction unit studied earlier
in the year, and the workshop introduced
a variety of animals with very different
reproduction strategies, behaviours and life
cycles.
Concepts and terms such as viviparous,
oviparous, marsupial, monotreme,
eutherian (placental) mammal, temperature
gender determination (as with crocodiles),
hemimetabolism versus holometabolism,
and asexual versus sexual reproduction were
taught in a fun and interesting way. Animals
included a sea star, a shark egg case with
a baby shark, a pot-bellied sea horse, a
grey-headed flying fox, a koala, an echidna, a
diamond python, a green tree frog, a saltwater
crocodile, a giant burrowing cockroach and
phasmid species.
During class times, teachers could also
book their classes into interactive sessions
such as watching winning entries in the
science short film festival in the Sir David
Zeidler Auditorium, attending the GOAT-VR
virtual reality pods, experimenting with dry
ice and edible cells, flying drones to the moon
in the foyer, and even attempting a moon
escape room!
DR MARTA CASSIDY – HEAD OF SCIENCE
www.scotch.vic.edu.au Great Scot
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