Fun At Summer Science School

The guest speakers this week, at Otumoetai Rotary, were three students from Otumoetai College - Gemma Tims, Bella Cartman, and Hannah O‘Neill.

 

They had attended the Summer Science Forum – and the first all-girl team selected by the club.

 

Gemma lead off their presentation in which they each talked about the academic modules they had attended.   Gemma spoke about microbiology, chemistry and sports science. 

In microbiology, they grew cultures from samples that they took orally from themselves.  Gemma described the ensuing growths as quite disturbing, but fascinating to see.  During the chemistry module, they did a practical exercise call recrystallization – a method of purifying solids.    They also got to witness some experiments that they were unable to do themselves.  

 

Sports science was one of Gemma’s favorite modules, which was held at the AUT Millenium facility.   There they studied motion analysis and force analysis.   After this module, Gemma realised she has a great interest in the subject, and can now consider this as a possible career option. Bella spoke about morality, ethics, and biological science.   Morality looked at the rights and ways of human behaviors, how this was underpinned by what we value, and that values can be material, character or community values.  

 

During the module, they had discussed the different responses to the Malaysian Airline disappearance, and the abduction of the girls in Nigeria.     It was found that you have to try and understand the decisions that are made, before judging and stereotyping.  

 

During the biological science module, they got to dissect heart and lungs and to understand how the organs worked.  

 

Hannah spoke about a speech at the start of the forums given by Michelle Dickinson about motivation.   Michelle spoke about obstacles she had had to overcome, and asked if the students thought she was successful.   Many described her as successful due to her long list of achievements.   However, Hannah did not use that measure, but instead, she measured the success on a number of obstacles she had had to climb through and jump over to make it to where she was today.    Hannah said that Michelle’s inspiring speech put everyone in a good head space for the upcoming two weeks.  

 

A module that Hannah did was biomedical engineering looking at things such as 3D printing of hip replacements to exactly fit individual needs, and mechanical heart systems which work on a wireless system, thus reducing the risk of infection and giving an overall better quality of life while the mechanical heart is needed.   Hannah also did a biological 

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science module and looked at techniques which allow medical professionals to study the dynamics of chromosome behavior in living tumor cells.  

 

 The three girls have yet to stop raving about the forum, the activities they participated in, and the way it was run.