National Science Youth Forum - Discovering your passion in science while making lifelong friends along the way -
The Great Southern Science Council partners with the Rotary Club of Albany Port WA (Inc) to send a local student to the annual National Youth Science Forum in January each year. In 2020 it was held in Brisbane, Queensland.
This is a great opportunity and one that we encourage all Year 12 students interested in science to investigate. Ask your science teacher about the program or go here – National Youth Science Forum.
This year, Fraser Wood from Albany Senior High School was selected, an achievement in itself, and he shares his experiences below.
Anyway - in Fraser's own words.………..
My experience at National Youth Science Forum, in a sentence, would have to be: Discovering your passion in science while making lifelong friends along the way.
Coming back from NYSF 2020 has really motivated me to put 110% effort into my year 12 studies. It also has confirmed what I want to do after school. For years people have asked me what I want to do and I’ve always replied with “I have no idea” or something along those lines.
NYSF has given me a broader knowledge of what you can pursue in science and has shown me what I really want to do, which is biomedical science.
My first expectations of NYSF was that it would consist of the stereotypical nerd but what I found was that everyone was in fact the opposite of the stereotype. If you were sporty and interested in chemistry there were people there just like you or if you were a musician and intrigued in biology you weren’t the only one.
The National Youth Science Forum included lab visits to different Institutes of the University of Queensland, and for us, a visit to Bayer CropScience® in Brisbane.
We also had lectures from experts in their field of science including a video call from Dr. Elanor Bell from the Australian Antarctic Division. There was an expo from the NYSF’s partners plus social activities such as the NYSF Olympics.
Dr Elanor Bell lecture
All-in-all, my time at NYSF would have to be some of the best 10 days of my life and I could not stress enough how much it has benefited me and all my peers that attended.