Educational Rewards for JPS Scientists

Throughout Term One and Term Two, a group of nominated students from Year 5 and Year 6 were invited to participate in a Science Enrichment Program after school. The program took students on a scientific journey exploring the endless and exciting possibilities of science through a variety of hands-on inquiry based investigations. To further enhance and extend the Science Enrichment Program, the students were invited to attend an excursion to Belridge Secondary College (BSC) Science Laboratory, where Mr Brett Crosbie (BSC Head of Science Teacher) and Mrs Hudson (BSC Lab Technician) welcomed and opened up the Science Laboratory to JPS junior scientists on Wednesday 29th May 2019.

The aim of the excursion was to provide students with learning experiences that challenge and build higher level Inquiry Science skills as detailed in the Australian Curriculum. Mr Crosbie set the challenge for JPS students to explore the basic physics of bridges. The students were provided with the opportunity to develop an understanding through experimentation of which shapes are the most structurally strong, and that many factors are taken into account in the engineering and building of bridges. The investigation provided the students with a practical application of physics to a real-world context. As a science teacher, it was extremely rewarding to be able to observe the JPS scientists embrace the challenge and use their inquiry skills to be able to design, discuss and control variables, and make and test their bridges throughout this practical investigation.

Congratulations to Elizabeth, Adeena, Jaxson, Jude, Flynn, Rachel and Annabella from Year 6 and to Amelia, Linde, Angus, Cloe, Wes, David, Jai, Kaylea, Fajri, Imogen and Harvey from Year 5 who attended the excursion. A big thank you to Mr Crosbie and Mrs Hudson for the time and effort that went into co-ordinating this day and to volunteer scientist Lisa for attending the excursion.

Nerelle Phillips

Science Teacher