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High school students put science into actionAustralia - July 01, 2012
Students across New South Wales and Queensland are putting their scientific minds to work as a part of this year's inaugural Science for Growth Awards, investigating everything from youth pain tolerance to alternative products for household insulation. An initiative of the Primary Industry Centre for Science Education (PICSE) and sponsored by Dow AgroSciences, the Science for Growth Awards encourage students in Years Nine and 10 to choose a science topic they would like to investigate, then develop a hypothesis and carry out experiments to answer their questions. With plans to expand the awards to all Australian schools in 2013, Dow AgroSciences' sponsorship reflects their mission to encourage Australia's next generation of bright young scientists to pursue careers in agriculture. "To overcome the growing skills shortage facing Australia's agricultural sector, we need to engage students in science at a high school level," said Dr. Matt Cahill, Dow AgroSciences' Research and Development Leader, Australia and New Zealand. "The entries to date have been impressive and give me great confidence that Australia's ag industry has a very bright future ahead." Year 10 entrant Rachel Rognoni, from Centenary Heights State School in Toowoomba, said her investigation into pain tolerance thresholds in youth was inspired after reading a magazine article. "I read a study that said the pain tolerance of kids in hospital increases when they are playing videogames because they're distracted," Rachel said. "It made me wonder if other distractions could do the same thing so I initiated a control test with a fellow student and then conducted several variable tests to trial my hypothesis. "Firstly, I put my volunteer's feet in a bucket of ice water and told her to hold them there as long as she could. I repeated the experiment, adding a range of distractions and timing how long it took her to pull her feet out." The distractions included playing video games, reading, having a conversation, listening to music and solving a mathematical equation. "The music and the video game were definitely the most effective at increasing her pain tolerance, but all of the distractions increased her tolerance, even if only slightly." Rachel's teacher, Amanda Kilgour, and New South Wales teacher Lisa Davis from Marian Catholic College in Griffith, received a teacher's award for commitment to student excellence as part of the Science for Growth Awards. Their prize included free registration, accommodation and travel expenses to attend the Conference of the Australian Science Teachers Association (CONASTA) in Canberra from July 8 – 11. "The Science for Growth Awards gives students an opportunity to create real life, valid experiments, helping to build links between the classroom and their future career, while developing problem solving skills that can be applied to almost every facet of daily life," Amanda said. Lisa added that while attending CONASTA provided a valuable opportunity to further her teaching career, the real prize is the opportunity to encourage students to participate in the Science for Growth Awards. One of Lisa's students, 15-year-old Mitchell Gibbs, has focused his experiment on an investigation into alternative products for household insulation. "I was helping Dad build our new home and after noticing how itchy insulation made me, I thought there has to be something better than this," Mitchell said. After searching the web for techniques to test the heat capacity of different substances with insulation properties, Mitchell read about several experiments that used balloons. "After watching an online clip where a couple of guys were holding a water filled balloon over a flame to test how long it would take for it to pop, I decided to investigate the heat capacity of other liquids and solids," he said. Mitchell tested the heat capacity of balloons filled with coffee, rice, sugar, oil, vinegar and saltwater before discovering that saltwater distributed heat more slowly than the other substances, making it the most effective insulator. Open to all Years Nine and 10 students in New South Wales and Queensland, submissions to the Science for Growth Awards close on 19 September. Lisa encouraged her fellow science teachers to get their students involved by ensuring they register their students online before the August 10 deadline. "An independently-based project like this shows the students that there are a range of different fields in science and a huge variety of career options for the future," she said. The winning students in each state will take home a cash prize, with the overall project winner receiving $500. For more information and to register go to www.scienceforgrowthawards.com.au For Editorial Information:
Jim Phimister
Sharyn Casey |
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