Primary Science at Blackfriars is becoming bigger than the Big Bang Theory. The role of Teacher Victoria Ruggiero as a Primary Science Specialist and a Senior Physics Teacher is to make science ‘come alive’ for the primary students, and equip them with lifelong scientific and problem-solving skills. Victoria teaches classes from Reception to Year 12, which is quite rare.
Victoria appreciates her role with the primary students,
“I feel very privileged to be working alongside the primary teachers helping to instil in the younger students skills that are essential for success in their senior years. Sometimes I visit the classroom with resources but more often than not the students have the opportunity to participate in experiments in the senior laboratories,” she said.
The two Reception classes have been looking at the senses. To explore touch and to develop fine motor skills the students made putty. They learnt how to combine borax, PVA glue and food colouring and were able to communicate the feeling of the putty. This was also combined with their art lesson where the mixing of colours was explored.
The Year 1 students have been looking at physical properties. They have visited the ‘big boys’ lab’ to make Oobleck, which is a slime from the famous Dr Seuss book, Bartholomew and the Oobleck. The students’ literacy skills have been further developed in constructing sentences to describe the physical properties of Oobleck and other materials. The boys also made a bubble mixture and melted chocolate to understand the process of a solid becoming a liquid.
The Year 4 students have also been looking at materials and their properties, particularly plastic. Literacy in science has been a key feature in the classroom. Students have just started their major project. They are to design a container for an egg out of straws and masking tape. The challenge is that the egg must survive the drop from one of the balconies at Blackfriars. This project is designed to assist the students to gain a feel for engineering and to work as a team to design and construct their egg containers.
Victoria said that the boys’ enthusiasm excites her as their science teacher and they are especially happy when they visit the senior laboratories.
“My aim is to inspire the boys to develop a curiosity and passion for science that they will carry with them through to secondary school”, she said.
Four Catholic schools across South Australia have been awarded $6.34 million in grants for capital works to improve learning spaces, increase opportunities for disadvantaged students and cater for more diverse learning needs.
The State Government grants — $6.34 million for Catholic schools and $6.38 million for independent schools — are for building projects to commence over the next year.
Introduced in 2018 to ensure all students have access to a first-class education, the latest funding under the scheme has been approved for four projects at Catholic schools and 103 smaller projects at independent schools.
