2013 School Magazine

I\/IEF?LE EAVEF? PUBLIC ';^^PEAKING Gol\/ipETITION^ The Junior Merle Weaver Public Speaking competition is held every year and is open to Year 10 students, one representing each House. Each student's speech is based on a proverb or wise saying. The Senior Merle Weaver takes place in Term 4 and is open to Year 12 students, one representing each House. She was the first woman and only the third student to be granted Honours in English from the University of Tasmania in 1913. Ms Weaver very kindly made a bequest to the school in 1951 for both competitions This year's winner of the Junior Merle Weaver competition was Josephine Auer from Beanland House, with the topic 'Honesty is the best policy' For the Senior Merle Weaver competition, Caltlyn Duke from Hirschfeld House won with her prepared speech on 'Youth disinterest in politics' and her impromptu speech on A woman's place is in the home'. In the middle of May. fifteen Year 11 and Year 12 girls attended the RACI Titration Competition held at OUT Titration is comparing the reaction of a base or acid whose volume and concentration are known with an acid or base whose concentration is unknown An experiment is performed to determine the volume of base needed to react w'th a given volume of acid and from this a simple calculation is used to determine the unknown concentration This skill requires accurate technique, and therefore. all girls began to learn and perfect their technique for the competition. supervised by Mrs Ross. at the end of Term I As well as learning some new (for Year IIS) or revised (for Year 12s) Chemistry techniques, all girls made some new friends throughout the practice sessions On the day, everyone arrived nervous but ready for the fight, and after three hours of desperate titreting and calculating. one of the Brisbane Girls Grammar teams came third in this regional round. That team consisted of Sivagowri Somasundaram 01M), Abitamy Sasidarakumaaran <11E) and Shelley X'rig <11B). Every girl thoroughly enjoyed the experience and all the Year IIS are looking forward to competing again next year Merle Weaver was a teacher at BGGS on three different occasions between 1918 and 1951 TI T I^'AT O N CONIPETITION

CON'ipETLTTON^

INTEL^'NATIONAL YO U N 6 P H Y^^^ C I ,^^T^ ' Toun:^'NAN'IENT TVPT AU';5^T, ?ALIA IN MELBOU, ?NE Heather Hunt <12H). Katie Ward <12H) and I participated in the 10th International Young Physicists' Tournament at Melbourne High School in March. it was an exhilarating and challenging competition as we presented solutions to complicated phenomena that are not taught in classroom Physics. Our team won first place and with it a place on the Australian team to compete in Taipei at IYPT International in July

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11.1. C1.11 Phil. IN, .I Q W. . I ,

TVPT INTEL?NATIONAL IN TAIWAN The 20131nternational Young Physicists' Tournament held in Taiwan was a fun and exciting experience Sophie Weir <12B) and Michael Chen from BGS joined Heather, Katie and I to represent Australia. All five of us felt fortunate to receive this amazing opportunity. The tournament consisted of five rounds, with a reporter. an opponent and a reviewer role in each. The reporter presents a solution to a proposed problem, a person from another team discusses these findings with the reporter, and the 'physics fight' is finished when the reviewer provides a summary of the arguments presented. The five days of fighting were extremely Intense. Not only was the tournament exhilarating. but we also went to many different places in Taiwan, including the National Synchrotron Radiation Research Centre. Shihsanhang Museum of Archaeology. Yangmingshan National Park and the Yehliu Geopark Overall. we came fifteenth out of twenty-six countries IYPT 2013 was such a wonderful and amazing experience; it is a memory that Sophie. Katie, Heather and I will keep forever

ALLISSA L1 12 MACKAY

SIVAGOWRI SQMASUNDARAM 11 MACKAY

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