REPORTS
2018 STANSW Young Scientist Coordinator
By Anjali Rao
Dear Young Scientist Supporters;
investigations or secondary-sourced investigations that most
effectively communicate how their depth study has enabled
the student to 'develop and acquire a deeper knowledge and
understanding of one or more clearly identified concepts found
within or inspired by the syllabus.'
It is a pleasure to send out my first official email as coordinator
for 2018.
In this email I will outline some of the major changes we are making
to the Young Scientist Awards including new age categories
(and associated judging rubrics) and new Rowe Scientific Depth
Study Awards.
The Rowe Scientific Depth Study Awards will only be awarded to
students who have never entered the STANSW Young Scientist
Awards before and at least four of the eight awards are to be
awarded to students from low SES schools.
1. NEW AGE CATEGORIES
A Gold Award of $600 will be presented to the best entry with
three Silver Awards of $300 and four Bronze Awards of $200 to
the next best entries, totalling $2,300 in prize-money.
The new HSC Science courses have brought a most welcome
increased focus on the development of working scientifically
skills, and our committee is very supportive of the dedicated
class time that NESA has allocated to Depth Studies. We are also
looking forward to 2019 when the new Science Extension course
commences. Members of our committee have worked closely
with Kerry Sheehan and his team at NESA over many years and it
is very heartening to see their efforts become a reality.
Further details of these Rowe Scientific Depth Study Awards will
be posted on our website tonight at www.youngscientist.com.au
The school year is only two weeks old and so is my new role as
2018 Coordinator of the STANSW Young Scientist Awards. What
an exciting time it is to start this new role. In the next weeks we
will be announcing even more new initiatives including
In anticipation of the increased quantity and quality of entries
we hope to be getting from Year 11 and Year 12 students we
have reconfigured our age categories and have aligned them to
Stages rather than year levels.
• More awards for regional students
• A regional judging hub for remote schools
In 2018, our secondary age categories will be: Years 7-8, Years
9–10 and Years 11–12.
• A new major sponsor for Paper Planes
• A new sponsor for one of our major primary categories
We are also adopting stage-related age levels in our primary
levels with the categories Years K–2, Years 3–4 and Years 5–6
age levels.
• An increase in the number of projects that we can send to
ISEF
The judging rubrics for Years 7–8 and 9–10 will be the same as the
old Years 7-9 rubrics and the Years 10–12 rubrics respectively.
We are currently working on the Years 11–12 rubrics so they
incorporate the skills of writing a scientific paper and encourage
peer reviewing and collaborating with experts in the field. By
explicitly linking our rubrics to the curriculum outco mes of the
Science Extension course, it is our intention that our judging
rubric can be used as a school-based assessment tool by all
schools offering the course.
• A total revamp of our old Models and Innovations category
that should take-off in technology classes right around NSW
Please do keep checking in on our website www.youngscientist.
com.au where we will post details of these exciting new
developments.
I would like to express my thanks to the wonderful members of
our STANSW Young Scientist team whose energy, enthusiasm
and hard work makes it possible to develop our program further.
I would especially like to thank past coordinators Ann Hanna and
Stuart Garth who are working alongside me and are providing
much needed time, advice and encouragement.
2. ROWE SCIENTIFIC DEPTH STUDY AWARDS
– YEAR 11
We are also proud to announce a new set of awards totalling
$2,300 that is being funded by Rowe Scientific Pty. Ltd.
Yours sincerely,
Anjali Rao
2018 STANSW Young Scientist Coordinator
The awards will be targeted towards eight Year 11 practical
15
SCIENCE EDUCATIONAL NEWS VOL 67 NO 1