Over seventy students plus teachers visited the Waite on Thursday 15 December as part of the ConocoPhillips Science Experience hosted by the University of Adelaide.
The program gives year 9 and 10 high school students from across the state the opportunity to spend 3 days engaging in hands-on activities and events at the University’s North Terrace and Waite campuses.
They get a glimpse of University life, participate in lab experiments, hear from senior lecturers and research staff, and find out about the undergraduate degree programs available to them after high school.
At Waite, the visiting students carried out soil science and plant science experiments, explored a virtual reality plant cell, toured the Plant Accelerator, investigated the function of plant cell walls and performed DNA extractions.
Activities were run by staff from the Why Waite program, the ARC Centres of Excellence in Plant Cell Walls and Plant Energy Biology, the School of Agriculture, Food and Wine, and the Waite Research Institute.
It was fantastic to welcome such engaged and interested students into some of the research and teaching facilities here at Waite. Hopefully some of them will return as undergraduates in a few years time!
The Science Experience program is also supported by Rotary and Young Scientists Australia (SA Chapter) and the Australian Science Teachers Association (ASTA).
