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Wilderness Times | Autumn 2021
NATIONAL YOUTH SCIENCE FORUM
From Tuesday 5 to Friday 22 January, a group of students was fortunate enough to be selected to participate in the 2021 National Youth Science Forum (NYSF). Traditionally held at ANU in Canberra, this program is available to students entering Year 12 who are interested in STEM and careers in science-related fields. Due to COVID-19 restrictions this year the NYSF ran for three weeks and combined both online and in-person experiences with an adaptive hybrid structure. We absolutely loved our experience and had several highlights from both the online component and the in-person visits. In our first week, we received a virtual tour of CERN (The European Organisation for Nuclear Research) and were able to see inside the large hadron collider, the world’s largest machine. We also conducted some at-home experiments (including DNA extraction from fruit and renewableplastic creation from potatoes) inspired by Questacon. The highlights of our in-person visits included trips to the Adelaide University Health and Medical Sciences Institute, the Institute of Machine Learning and the Flinders
University Tonsley campus, along with an exclusive tour of the Defence Science Technology Institute at Edinburgh. We loved meeting other students from local and interstate areas who shared similar passions and enjoyed the exposure to the many fields of science. Despite the challenges of being run online, passionate and engaging presenters made the experience significantly more enjoyable. We were privileged with the opportunity to listen to not one, but two Nobel Laureates. Professor Barry Marshall and Brian Schmidt, ANU Vice-Chancellor, talked to us about their journeys, discoveries and challenges in navigating the STEM world. We also enjoyed listening to Dr Karl Kruszelnicki and Justin Clarke, a Rhodes Scholar and retired AFL player. As an additional part of the program, Nikita was lucky enough to attend a small in-person session at Lot 14, the centre of South Australia’s rapidly growing space industry. Unaware of the nature of the event, it resulted in a small surprise, as she ended up in the background of a press conference with Premier Steven Marshall. He was announcing the launch of Australia’s first satellite!
This very exciting day also included a tour of Myriota and Inovor Technologies facilities, two companies that play an essential role in satellite development. A visit to the Space Discovery Centre’s construction site, which opened earlier this year was also enjoyed.
The program was an impressive, inspiring and highly enjoyable experience that presented us with an eclectic range of careers, opportunities and people. We strongly encourage any girls with an interest in STEM to give it a go. Nikita Page, Hamayel Abaid, Tasmia Alvi, Rhea Joshi, Lucy Percival, Bronte Sleath and Gauri Wechalekar.
