Science

SCIENCE

Full of budding scientists, innovative thinkers and opportunities far and wide, Science at Pymble never fails to disappoint. Even in a year as challenging as 2020, we saw girls all over the school participate in a range of thrilling Science activities. Through organising these activities, we were also able to share our passion for Science, to encourage and inspire future Pymble scientists.

Science Week

During Week 7 Term 3, girls from Years 7 to 12 were invited to participate in Science Week led by the Science Captains. In the spirit of this year’s theme ‘Under the Water’, several lunchtime activities were run, such as bubble-making on Gloucester Lawn, ocean slime, lava lamps, and competing in two virtual escape rooms. An underwater escape room was also played in Connect time. Congratulations to the groups of girls who solved these escape rooms and everyone who participated! Along with this, in Term 3 the Junior girls were delighted to receive their own Junior Science Week. Their week was jam-packed with fun experiments, science riddles and fun facts, finishing up with an exciting ‘Dress up as a Scientist’ mufti day. Science Week was a great way to get girls involved. We hope to see more girls becoming more devoted to scientific pursuits and extending their passion beyond the classroom.

Jessica Lin, Isabelle Jimenez and Alexandra Whittingham, Year 11

Australian Science Olympiad

In late July, girls sat up to three different two-hour Olympiads each testing separate disciplines of Science. In this competition, Pymble girls performed exceptionally well, with Esther Choi, Year 11, being invited to attend the Physics and Biology Olympiad Summer Schools, and Amber Cai, Year 11, to attend the Biology Olympiad Summer School. Congratulations to all the girls who participated!

ISO Project

The ISO investigation took place during quarantine and allowed Year 10 students to conduct independent Science study from the comfort of their homes – exploring an area of interest through their own experiment. “I personally chose to look at the sugar and starch quantities in bananas as they ripen by measuring their reactions with iodine. We were allowed to go home with the ideas and final experiment, so I was able to involve my parents and have great discussions about my topic. Overall, I believe the ISO investigation was very enjoyable and would highly recommend a similar idea to be repeated for years to come.” – Olivia Harvey, Year 10

Science

Juliette Harris, Grace Gerreyn and Alexandra Hyett, Year 8

SEEDS

And the list goes on! For our Year 8 girls, their Science, Earth, Environment and Design Solutions (SEEDS) project saw them researching relevant topics about the environment.

“For my SEEDS project, my group explored the topic of food waste in schools. We focused on how we could minimise the amount of food wastage in schools and strategies to re-use food for beneficial situations. With all the information we gathered we created activities for the Year 6 girls to complete. This task taught me valuable research skills that I will be able to use in my upcoming years of Science.” – Sara Glen, Year 8

Despite its difficulties, 2020 was a magnificent year for Science at Pymble. We can only hope that from these initiatives, activities and competitions the girls had an opportunity to apply themselves where they may not usually, step outside their comfort zones, and learn to love Science just as much as we do. We cannot wait to see the future scientific discoveries of Pymble girls – watch us change the world! Jessica Lin, Isabelle Jimenez, and Alexandra Whittingham, Captains of Science

STEM

STEM House Challenge

Throughout Term 3, House groups from Years 7 to 10 participated in the 2020 Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) House Challenge. Students had the option of choosing from one of three challenges and employed their creativity, resilience and collaboration skills to create amazing designs. The Minecraft Challenge allowed students to develop their digital skills and creativity as they redesigned their year group’s specific area of the College. Additionally, the girls had to fulfil requirements such as having at least 30 classrooms, locker rooms, etc. The girls put so much hard work into their designs and took their creativity to the next level! A big congratulations to Year 9 Wylie and Year 10 Hammond who tied for first place in this challenge. The second challenge was to create a Marble Run using household materials. Following rules, such as requiring the marble to be above the ground for at least 30 seconds, the girls created sophisticated courses integrating their House name and colour into their designs. Congratulations to the winners in Year 8 Lang; Jessie Li, Mulan Xu, Angela Liu, Emily Wang and Emma Cheng, who surpassed all expectations by creating an astounding marble run! The third challenge was to create a toy out of household materials aimed at children between the ages of six and nine. Sophia Ji, Yu Zhou and Young Cho in Year 8 Ingleholme created three recycled sock dolls designed to inspire young girls to aim to be whatever they want. They tied for first place with Evelyn Zhu, Sonali Shuh and Katherine Macpherson in Year 7 who designed an educational boardgame for younger students called ‘Chase the Fish’.

The STEM Challenges provided the girls with hands-on, creative and fun ways to work together and get to know each other better and learn new skills and hopefully discover a new area of passion.

Eisha Bhardwaj, Year 11 and Dr Kristie Spence (Head of Learning Area - Science)

Code Club

Code Club is run for girls from Years 3 to 12 where they learn how to code in different programming languages such as Scratch, Javascript and HTML. Using these languages, they can create their first games, animations and apps. The students learn a variety of skills along the way, from exploring how the creation of computer simulation software can help solve real life problems to navigating a professional threedimensional software engine Unity to develop a variety of threedimensional games. In Coding Level 3, students developed their own three-dimensional painting app with a variety of brushes where the user can paint and rotate a canvas! These projects sparked the girls’ creativity and sense of fun, allowing them to think outside the box and collaborate with others to solve challenging problems. Coding allowed the girls to develop skills that will perfectly equip them for the technologically advanced 21st century.

Eisha Bhardwaj, Captain of STEM

Science

AGRICULTURE

Year 11 Agriculture Camp

In March, Year 11 was lucky enough to travel to Bathurst for three days as a way for girls to apply their theoretical knowledge in a practical environment. While we were there, we visited a range of farms including a Hereford cattle stud, a regenerative sustainable farm, a traditional family-run sheep farm, as well as a windmill farm. We then applied our newfound practical knowledge by each writing a farm case study report about our visit.

Greta Roberts, Captain of Agriculture

An Unusual Year for the Ag Plot

The year 2020 started well for the Agriculture faculty and all girls were keen to be learning about and experiencing agriculture. However, what a year it turned out to be once COVID-19 emerged and brought everything to a shuddering halt. The Year 9 girls who had been deeply involved in monitoring the growth and development of their laying hens and broiler meat birds had to curtail their plans for this unit and exit this aspect of their assessment most abruptly. The Year 10 girls, who had just planted their wheat trial, had to look on in despair as the cockatoos (combined with COVID-19) put an end to this important activity. Year 11 girls had to set up their legume experiments on their bedroom windows at home and Year 12 girls had two excursions cancelled and replaced with something new and relatively unknown to them called Microsoft Teams!

Iris Hastings, Year 7

Year 11 girls had to set up their legume experiments on their bedroom windows at home...

However, as Term 3 dawned and we were all (or nearly all) back at Pymble, life began to return to some familiar shape, and we all became quite fascinated by the term 'virtual'. We were also extremely fortunate to have plans for the farm renovations approved and started. Despite some short-term absences from the farm (and much-loved animals like Larry and Fetta), the long-term benefits will be that the farm as a resource will be magnificent. Thank you to everyone involved in this transformation – from Paul the builder to the Facilities team and also Dr H! The outcome will be worth the wait.

Science

Year 9 learning about cattle managment with Grant Keech

Thank you also to Dave the Farmer who does a wonderful job looking after things, Ms Attley who is part of the Ag team and everyone else who helps make Pymble Ag a dynamic, enjoyable and pleasant learning space.

Mr Grant Jackson, Agriculture Co-ordinator

Taem Al-Witri, Year 8

Olivia Linfoot and Sally Cooper, Year 8