Grammar Gazette- Issue 1, 2017

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FACULTY OF WONDER AND AWE

Extract from Lady Principal (1882-1889), Miss Sophie Beanland’s 1883 Foundation Day Speech ‘THERE HAS BEEN AN EXTENSION OF INSTRUCTION IN NATURAL SCIENCE, WHICH EMBRACES SUBJECTS FULL OF FASCINATION TO YOUNG STUDENTS, AND POWERFUL AS INSTRUMENTS IN CULTIVATING THE FACULTIES OF OBSERVATION AND ACCURATE DESCRIPTION, AND IN AROUSING KEEN INTEREST AND DELIGHT IN THE WONDERS AROUND US.’

students ready to launch! As those who have gone before them, they will be part of immersive astronaut and pilot training activities that will culminate in either a challenging extended-duration simulated space mission or — with their newly acquired aeronautics and survival skills — the planning and execution of a simulated rescue mission. Beyond the scientific learnings and insights Space Camp brings, enduring and valuable life-wide lessons abound for our young adventurers. Our girls face myriad cognitive, social and emotional challenges as they mix long-haul travel with intense learning experiences among students from all over the world: new science concepts; foreign historical, political and geographical contexts; unfamiliar cultural idioms; and being away from the comforts and security of home. Being Grammar girls, they are well- placed to absorb and process these challenges and can be rewarded with a new or modified outlook on life. Often a parent has commented that they struggle to reconcile the self-reliant, considerate young woman who returned from Space Camp with the dependent child they farewelled a mere two weeks or so earlier.

AUTHOR Dr Sally Stephens Director of Science

Much is written in current media about the ‘need to encourage women and girls into science’ and the waning interest in science more generally in Australia. This is not the case at Brisbane Girls Grammar School. As it has throughout our 142-year history, Science thrives at this School and the tradition of ‘inspiring wonder and awe’ continues. Last year (2016), more than 90 per cent of our Year 12 cohort studied one or more Science subject and of that group, more than forty per cent are now undertaking a science-based university degree. Our students are already highly motivated. We attribute the popularity of our elective science courses to two things: well-credentialed, specialist, skilled teachers who present stimulating, well-resourced, differentiated curriculum to all Year levels; and an evolving array of enriching experiential learning opportunities in settings outside the classroom and even across the world … including the captivatingly named Space Camp. SPACE CAMP Since 1992 our participation in Space Camp has seen more than 350 Grammar girls attend an intensive hands- on learning programme in the USA during the June/ July holidays. On what will be our fourteenth ‘mission’ to Space Camp, this year we have thirty-two excited

Grammar girls teamed with other students at Space Camp

GRAMMAR GAZETTE