In Semester 2, Barbreck Year 6 students commenced learning with St Catherine’s Senior School Science teacher, Mrs Anita Fernando. The girls loved the opportunity to extend their STEM learning and are looking forward to building their STEM-related skills and knowledge when they transition to the Senior School next year.

Four of our Year 6 STEM students provide reflections on their time spent with Mrs Fernando below.

STEM Reflections

STEM in Semester 2 for Year 6 was with Mrs Fernando. She came down from the Senior School to teach us many new things about Science. We learned interesting things. She taught us what an acid-base-determiner is, and how to use it. We also made our own determiner out of radishes, beetroot, blueberries, red cabbage and turnips. We got to tell what pH different products were, like how Sprite is acidic, and how laundry detergent is a base. Now we know how to understand the pH scale, and what the colours mean.

During Term 3, we had online learning, and we started STEM with Mrs Fernando. One of our first tasks was doing various at-home experiments using things we could find around our kitchen. Matches, microwaves, freezers and other materials were fun to use in the experiments. We looked deeply into our five senses. In Science, you can use all of them in an experiment – except taste. Mrs Fernando told us not to eat any of the products, even though there was chocolate and ice cream!

Another online task was ice melting. We grabbed some ice blocks out of our freezers and used different methods to see which would melt the fastest, and which would melt the slowest.

Mrs Fernando looked at plastics, and how long it takes different types to break down. Paper towel only takes two to four weeks to break down. However, a glass wine bottle takes 1,000,000 years to break down! A milk carton takes three months, a sock takes one to five years, and fishing line takes over 600 years.

We have learned many new things this semester, and it included a lot of collaborative group work as well.

We both really enjoyed STEM with Mrs Fernando, and we can’t wait to continue learning Science in the Senior School!

Louisa Liao and Olivia Grasso

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STEM with Mrs Fernando was a great experience, we tried lots of different Science experiments. Piper and I enjoyed hopping down different rabbit holes that we haven’t explored before. It gave us a better taste of the real world!

One of our first experiments online was to observe an apple disintegrate. There were four different cups to observe.  One was an apple with soil and water. It was fascinating how a little piece of fruit developed so much mould and how it changed completely.

Researching different types of plastic was a great activity. We found out that different types of plastics have some very fancy names! This activity was still online but we were able to enjoy it.

Our favourite experiment was the acid test. We did two different tests. One was testing household products with natural indicators. The second one was testing with universal indicators. Our minds were blown when we tested facial cleaner, as it was on the other end of what we expected. This experiment was extremely amusing!

Another fun test was when we boiled vegetables. We used beetroot, blueberries, turnips, radishes and red cabbage. We chopped the vegetables up and then we used a steamer so the veggies could cook. We then connected that lesson to other ones.

We tried a test called ‘Does being taller make you stretch further?’ with multiple students trying this on their family members. It didn’t quite work because we were at home and it was very complicated through Teams.

Piper and I enjoyed Year 6 STEM, it is a great way to learn new things. Overall, this year has been challenging with online classes, but we were still able to learn and enjoy STEM classes.

Piper Pascoe and Indira Smith