Vanessa Lam
9 February 2016: High school and college students from across the ACT recently visited the University of Canberra to take part in a series of summer workshops, where they had the chance to use cutting edge technology and conduct experiments.
Held by the Faculty of Education, Science, Technology and Mathematics (ESTEM), 90 students took part in a range of activities including conducting chemical experiments by making slime, experiencing augmented reality, virtual computers, coding, looking into statistics and testing waterways.
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Associate professor in molecular and cellular biology Sudha Rao teaching some of the ESTEM summer workshop students about cancer and genetics. Photo: Vanessa Lam.
One of the workshops focussed on cutting edge genetic technologies for understanding and treating cancer, giving students the chance to explore epigenetics, perform lab experiments, analyse human cancer cells and gain hands-on experience with complex technology.
"What we're doing is we're taking some sample cells that have been donated and we're extracting the ribonucleic acid (RNA) out of them and we're going to try to identify the features in the RNA that are causing the cancer," 16-year-old Christopher Seidl said.
Nicholas Dale from John Paul College said he enjoyed the opportunity to the use the University's facilities.
"If you're at school you have around 50 people for a science class, you don't get as much of a hands-on experience," he said.
"Even if there was something like this at school, we would probably just be watching the teacher do it, we wouldn't get to actually learn how to work in a real lab and use real lab equipment."
16-year-old Elizabeth Joseph from Narrabundah College said the workshop has increased her interest to study biomedical science.
"This whole experience has been amazing, I've met some cool people and I've enjoyed everything so far," she said.
