‘Mentors for our Students’ 2009 Newsletter

1. ‘Mentors for our Students’ 2009Newsletter ‘Mentors for our Students’ school based mentoring program involved young people from Years 9-12 in 10 of Geelong’s Secondary Schools. They were matched with recently retired people from careers associated with maths, science and engineering. This program was established to encourage the students to understand the benefits of keeping up with their maths and science subjects and to consider a career in these areas. The young people and their mentors met on average for 1 hour a week. The meetings involved a focus on careers and activities based around either science, maths or engineering. The following newsletter documents a snap shot of several of the mentor/mentee partnerships and the activities they worked on whilst developing a friendship and establishing a foundation upon which to discuss career options and the world of work.

2. Geelong High School Mentor: Roger Lamb Mentees: Matthew Reynolds, Josh Melvin, Tyler Mits The three students undertook a project involving a Solar Panel. They investigated the application of ‘reflectors’ to augment the power output. This involved constructing a suitable ‘set-up’ to enable the choice of the best available material for the adjustable reflectors which were then used in successive trials on sunny days to log the increase in output obtained by varying the attitude of the reflectors. CSIRO ‘Crest’ Silver Award Project. Geelong High School Mentor: Martin Prins Mentees: Corey Mole, Monique Howarth, Harley Whalam These students from Geelong High School are participating in the F1-in-schools program. The team discussed the rules and regulations for designing and building a small scale model racing car from balsa wood, the requirements for presentation material - in both printed and computer-based forms and the CAD/CAM software available. This project will continue into 2010.

3. North Geelong Secondary College Mentors: Frank Thompson and Tony Gage Mentees: Team 1 - Jason Duong, Brandon Cray, Ronald Salazar Team 2 - Sandra Gajic, Kaitlyn Richards Two teams of students at North Geelong Secondary College competed against each other in a ‘Bridge Building’ competition. The guidelines were simply to Construct a bridge from twenty-five 250mm long Bamboo skewers to span 300mm.  On completion the bridges were tested to destruction by placing a hanger at the centre of the bridge and gradually increasing the weight.  The students are now planning to participate in the F1-in-schools Program and have begun the initial stages of planning. Lara Secondary College Mentor: Gaetan Limsowtin Mentees: Jordon Klauss, Aaron Teesdale, Cody Anderson Students worked in groups of 2-3 on science projects of their choice. In some cases some limited experimental work was done. The groups worked on projects such as : Gene therapy , its beginning and up to date application in contemporary medicine and aspects of musculo-skeletal research in sports medicine.  Oral presentations concluded this project.

4. Bellarine Secondary College Mentor: Gordon Portway Mentees: Lokky Lou, Simon Nelson, Naomi Matthews, Katrina Woodroffe The mentee's investigated how the clearing of land and the use of fertilisers on farm land affect the phosphate and salinity levels along the length of the river Barwon. Water was tested from various points including: West Barwon Reservoir, Birregurra, Birregurra Creek, Salt Lake, before Winchelsea township, after Winchelsea township, at Inverleigh, Queens Park, Belmont Common, Lake Connewarre, Sheep wash at Barwon Heads and The Bridge at Barwon Heads. Bellarine Secondary College Mentor: Alan Barratt Students have embarked on an ambitious programme to build a go-kart. As the programme only started in the final weeks of the school year the target will be to have a running engine by the end of term. Local traders have been generous in donating tools and equipment and the students are enthusiastic.

5. Bellarine Secondary College Mentor: Jock Christoe Mentees: Spencer Gray, Sarah-Kate Jobson, Ryan Lemon, Dylan Cook This group of students carried out experiments to determine if the light fastness of colour extracted from indigenous plants could be improved by applying them to textile fibres rather than the fibrous plants traditionally used to make articles.  CSIRO ‘Crest’ Silver Award Project. Bellarine Secondary College Mentor: Liz McLennan Mentees:  Monica Russell, George Burrell, Emily Taylor This group decided to investigate a team project as well as individual projects. The team project involved a worm farm - feeding the worms different diets for 2 months, counting and weighing before and after. The project also required testing the soil before and after the time period for pH and N, P, K.  Monica looked at the ripening of fruits in different packaging; Georgia looked at hand eye dominance which was measured by volunteers shooting hoops; Emily looked at how well adults cope with middle school science tests.

6. St Ignatius College Mentor: Nolan Broad Mentees: Demi Lai, Sarah Box, Sean Finn, Luke Edwards Initially the group decided to work on an “egg packaging” project.  They formulated an objective, took measurements, decided what to construct, constructed, then tested. In term four, they began a new project that might qualify for a “CREST” award. This included investigating how the length of a blow-pipe affects the velocity of a dart, using a “ballistic pendulum”. They had to develop a plan for the equipment and construct it. Geelong Baptist College Mentor: Tony Klemm Mentees: Jamie Ifka, John Lynch, Tamara Mcquire, Mark McCarthy and Steven Babaniaris “My task was to support five students in year 12 Mathematics Methods and Specialist Mathematics on Wednesday afternoons. I always tried to have something to talk about – apart from maths – each time I attended. I was blessed by events, such as the amateur discovering the comet/asteroid collusion with Jupiter, and Nobel prize awards, which provided great discussion subjects.”, Tony.

7. Christian College Mentors: Jeremy Parker and Bill Hall Mentees: Lewis Carpenter, Hayden Fossey, Jay Gross, James Hibbert, Gil McKenzie, Johnathon Muffett, Ryan Reed, Daniel Salamy, Ned Searle, Bradley Smith, Cameron Smith and Blake Wall. “We were assigned to support a group of 12 students undertaking the Year 11 Systems Technology course. Our involvement was with a practical class in a workshop/laboratory. Our role was to assist the students in identifying and building a device/machine to complete a task involving some form of electrical feedback. Examples of the Projects were: Converting a VCR recorder/player into a toaster; Making a boat with an in-built directional controller; Building model guns (from Lego) that fired elastic bands after tracking/finding their target with a sensing device.”, Bill & Jeremy.