2012 School Magazine

it-IAIA During the September school holidays and the first week of Term IV. eleven Brisbane Girts Grammar students travelled to France for the French Study Tour. Filled with excitement we embarked on what would be a very fulfilling experience for us att After a long ftight. we arrived in An gout6me which was to be our home for the first two weeks. An gout6me is a beautiful French town In south western France perched on a hilltop overlooking the beautiful Charentais region. Over the coming weeks we would come to know its little cobbled streets. and interesting old buildings well During our stay we explored the town with private tours of the Theatre. famous Comic Museum, Town Hall to former fortressj. and enormous Comic inurets that decorate the town wat15 throughout We also ventured into the beautiful Dordogne region where we visited the colourfut markets at Brant6me and toured the chateau of BCrdeittes. Of course. no visit to France would be complete without a visit to the Loire Valley. There we saw CIOS Luc6. the last home of Leonerdo da Vinci. with all of his amazing inventions. This was followed by an Interesting guided tour of the royal castle of Amboise One of the most unforgettabte parts of the trip was the two-week homestay with our French host sisters and the opportunity to experience French life with them. We would go to school each day when there were 00 excursions. and spend our days listening. and talking French with people our age. The friendships we have made still continue today. They will probably last a lifetime. And of course there was the French food! Our hosts were keen to show us the very best of French cuisine. At the end of two weeks it was very difficult to leave our families and An gout6me which by now seemed so familiar. But Paris was waiting Paris was fitted with new experiences such as standing in front of the Mona Lisa in the Louvre Museum; taking photos in front of the sparkling Eiffel Tower at night; strolling down the Champs Elysees with friends; and eating dinner at Le Procope - the oldest cafe in the world The three weeks was a wonderful and in some ways lite-changing experience for us all. And it goes without saying that our French has improved enormousty SONJA PANJKOV111MIAND ANNABELLE GANK0 111Rl

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December 2011 saw three teams of Year 12 students and Intrepid staff head off to the wilds of Borneo for the fifth Antipodeans Abroad Expedition. This adventure. exploring the city streets and atteys. cruising on the Kinabatangan River and trekking Mt Kinabalu. was challenging. rewarding and memorabte Each team had a slightly different itinerary, but we were all in OS excited about the community project. in an Iban community on the Engkari River. Ukum Longhouse is the home of twenty-nine fernitIes. whose main livelihood and source of Income comes from agricultural products. The project work iconstructing a new preschootI was chattenging and fun and the people and hospitality received was incredible The welcoming ceremony upon our arrival was totally unforgettabte it was so rewarding t see the results of att our fundraising, and to see how much the community appreciated our work The trip had its obstactes - broken down transport. terrible weather. bugs. hot and sweaty conditions and occasional Illness - but it was really a team experience. and totetty different from any travel experience any of us have had before. The mountain trek was hard and we really did need to do more stairs before we left. but there was nothing like the sense of accomplishment when it was over. even though our muscles were so sore it hurt to get out of bed for a coupte of days The thing that helped the most Ibut also was the most difficult sometimesl in terms of working as a team was the fact that the students practically made every decision. if we weren't organised enough. we wouldn't go sightseeing in the day. we wouldn't eat and we wouldn't have somewhere to sleep Although occasionally we were steered in the correct direction. everything was up to the students. it was quite an experience to learn that we had to step up and make a decision. and then accept consequences it something didn't work out as planned WENDY NEWMAN. JO ROBERTS AND IMOGEN KERR IYEAR1220111

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Our challenge On the horrific day of the 9/11 Incident. many people lost their lives because they had no escape route. Their choices were to either die from burning in the building or die from lumping from great heights. The challenge was to build a parachute and explain why it could be effective in saving people if the need ever arose for them to jump from a high-rise building We were taken on a brief tour of our sister schoot. Raffles Girls' School. where we were taught the basic four-step process of mathematical modelling - begin with a real-world problem. change it to a mathematical problem. develop a mathematical solution, and convert that Into a real-world solution to the problem We were also taught how to use the Logger Pro program. which aided us in working out the velocity of an object from a video. as well as the Tl-nspire calculator. which helped us to graph our data To gather data. each group created parachutes with one variable which in most cases was the area of the canopy. in the end. in OS of us concluded that the larger the canopy of the parachute. the

more effective it would be. Based on these conclusions. each group had to create a PowerPoint presentation showing how the four-step mathematical modelling process could be used to solve the stated problem and how the data collected supported the parachutes design We all agree that the best day of SMMFC. and perhaps the whole trip. was when we went to Universal Studios. Singapore jusSl to collect data white enjoying ourselves. We were each given a different probtem to solve on various aspects of the theme park My group had to work out the speed at which The Vortex and Tornado itwo roller coastersl were travetting. when they were closest to each other on the track Overall. the trip to Singapore provided each of us with an exciting opportunity to extend ourselves and learn more about mathematical modelling AARTHI SRITHARAN 19Mi