Rotary Club of Port Fairy supports the Great South Coast Science & Engineering Challenge 2023.
The Port Fairy Rotary Club, along with other volunteers from other Rotary clubs in Warrnambool, assisted at the Great South Coast Science & Engineering Challenge 2023, which was held at Deakin University in August.
The Challenge is organised annually by the University of Newcastle. South West coordinator, Brooke Jensen, from the Rotary Club of Warrnambool, organised the Great South Coast region's event this year. The Challenge involved students from years 9 and 10 representing six local secondary schools.
On Challenge day, the students from Kings College, Warrnambool, were the eventual winners. Their winning score was also the highest score recorded from all the other regions in Victoria in 2023 and this earned them the right to represent their state at the national titles to be held in Sydney in October.
The Rotary Club of Port Fairy is providing financial support to the Kings College team by assisting with their travel costs to Sydney. The Club donated $500, which is supplemented by donations from other Warrnambool-based Rotary clubs.
At the most recent Rotary Club meeting held in Port Fairy, Brooke Jensen gave an overview presentation of the Science & Engineering Challenge and also introduced three students (from a total team of 32) who will be representing Kings College at the finals in Sydney.
Brooke also introduced four female students from Warrnambool College who are hopeful of attending the 2024 National Youth Science Forum (NYSF) - a two-week forum which is held annually in Canberra and Brisbane each January. The Port Fairy Rotary Club has regularly supported a student to attend the NYSF and has made a $1,400 donation to the four students - being 50% of their anticipated cost - to attend the Forum in 2024.
It was an interesting meeting at the Rotary Club dinner on 16th October where Rotarians, students, teachers and parents met in a relaxed atmosphere to hear all about the Challenge and the NYSF which are run to stimulate students to take undertake STEM * subjects at school and foster careers in science and engineering.
(* STEM is an approach to learning and development that integrates the areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Through STEM, students develop key skills including: problem solving. creativity.)
The funding of these youth programs was drawn from retained profits from the 2022 Rotary District 9780 Conference that was hosted in Port Fairy. The, then, District Governor (John Clue from Port Fairy) earmarked these funds to be used in support of future youth programs
Some photos from the GSW Science and Engineering Challenge 2023.
