St Matthew’s Catholic School student Sophie Beverstock last week took out the prize for ‘Best Overall Pitch’ during a Diocese-wide presentation as part of the brand new NSW Science Extension course.
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Twelve students from Catholic schools in the Diocese of Bathurst are among the first students in the state to take the new course which enables students with a passion for science to undertake their own high-level scientific research project.
The course is divided into four modules;
- First - The Foundations of Scientific Thinking, students briefly explore the history and philosophy of science to establish the nature of modern scientific thinking;
- Second - The Scientific Research Proposal, students will develop their own research proposal by developing a research question, hypothesis, strategy to obtain data and analyse it to answer their question;
- Third - The Data, Evidence and Decisions, students will learn and apply a range of data and statistical analysis methods to describe patterns and enable them to make decisions about their hypothesis.
- Final - The Research Report, students will write a scientific research report for their investigation.
Students are required to seek out academic mentors to support them in this year long research project, giving them the opportunity to see how science solves real world problems. They research a variety of different topics and work with world class academic mentors from Universities state-wide.
For example, three St Matthew’s students worked with academics from the University of Sydney, University of Newcastle and the University of Wollongong.
Declan Crawley carried out research with Dr Matt Dun, from the University of Newcastle, on the rare but clinically important Schwashman’s Disease which impacts children. Curtis McLean collaborated with Dr Terry O’Dwyer, who is a field biologist with NSW Office of Environment and Heritage, on the conservation biology of endangered sea birds. And Sophie Beverstock worked with University of Sydney’s Dr Mo'ayyad Suleiman to optimise the compression force used in breast mammograms.
And last Friday the Diocese hosted this first cohort of students - including from MacKillop College Bathurst, La Salle Academy Lithgow, James Sheahan Catholic High School Orange, and St John’s College Dubbo - to present their Scientific Research Proposal.
Students were required to do a pitch presentation, an essential skill as scientists’ ability to communicate to a variety of audiences helps them to disseminate their research findings to the general public, collaborate with researchers in other fields, as well as persuade funding bodies that their research is worth funding.
In this task, students had to prepare and deliver a short pitch to a non-specialist audience with the aim of persuading the audience that their research should be prioritised.
Students also had to submit an annotated bibliography demonstrating how scientific research was used to develop their research question. And present their pitch to a panel of judges to critique and give advice on the strengths and providing constructive feedback on what can be improved.
The judges on the day included; Jenny Allen, Bathurst Diocese Executive Director of Catholic Schools; Bathurst Councillor Monique Morse; Rose-Marie van Raad, Diocese Consultant to Schools; and Dr Jayden Hunter, lecturer, School of Exercise Science, Sport & Health at CSU Bathurst.
Dr Miao Li, lecturer in Civil Engineering from Charles Sturt University, was also in attendance.
Dr Li recently was placed third in the five-minute research pitch competition, and she talked to the students about her research as well as provide some motivation for our students to continue in the area of research.