Marton Hidas with Year 9 and 10 students from Moriah College.

This outreach program aims to mentor and motivate exceptional high school students by introducing them to the research environment. UNSW postgraduate students operate the program, providing face to face and online supervision of the high school students. The secondary school students select a scientific area of interest to them and then independently formulate a hypothesis and propose an experiment to test it. Postgraduate mentors assist with the experiments, participating in online discussions using WebCT (a program designed to facilitate internet-based teaching).

In 2005, 26 year 9 and 10 Moriah College students participated, eight of them choosing to work with astronomy postgraduates. The students responded strongly to the opportunities the program provided: the excitement and enthusiasm of actually being in a laboratory with a real scientist, performing experiments and experiencing campus life was evident in the student’s end-of-program presentations.

A key aim was to expose talented school students to the culture of a working scientist. The postgraduate mentors also enjoyed the interaction with the students, developing their teaching and communication skills, and creating online tools for the students to work with.

Wilfred Walsh