SciTech Challenges
Over the last couple of weeks, our CPS STEAM representative teams have enjoyed challenging and engaging excursions when attending their Scitech Challenge days.
On Wednesday in week 2, our Year 5 & 6 representatives participated in the official 2022 Scitech Challenge day against a range of other primary schools. This year’s format took a detour from previous years with students getting a broader experience through a set of different challenge activities. Some of the activities included testing rock samples to discover which one was a meteorite, a maths problem solving challenge throughout the Scitech main floor, an engineering design challenge to create a way for an astronaut to re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere without exceeding 10 G-Force, the planetarium show followed included a 20 question quiz and we wrapped up with a theatre Show on Heat. Congratulations to Sam, Xavier, Jacob, Charlie, Connor, Jun, Ethan and Xitong for representing us proudly and demonstrating your fantastic problem-solving ability, as well as the Churchlands values. Although our teams didn’t walk away with any prizes this year, the experience gained and the opportunity to challenge themselves in new ways, and mingle with like-minded students from other schools… and the fact that is was just really fun…was reward enough!
On Tuesday of week 4, the Year 4 teams participated in their Challenge day. Being a junior year, their day revolved around challenging themselves rather than competing against other schools. The students were very excited from the get-go and through the day experience a smorgasbord of scientific exploration and challenge. We learned about how the profession of Astronomy has developed over the years and how skills students are learning at school will be invaluable down the track in the science fields. Students had ample time to explore the Scitech floor, between some great challenge activities. For one challenge they had to use scientific exploration skills, and problem-solving to solve an intriguing heist crime situation. Students examined and analysed a range of evidence before collaborating to provide their judgement. The other major challenge activity of the day included designing, building and refining their own wind turbines. They tested and recorded their designs in a wind simulation environment (airconditioners!) to find the optimal power generation. Congratulations to Yannick, Abbey, Samuel, Xitong, Rachel, Iris, Jolie and Zoey on representing the school beautifully, and it was great to see you so engaged and learning all day long!
We are already looking forward to next year’s events!
Luke Johnson