On the 12th of February, GSCC celebrated the International Day of Women in STEM. This is a day when the
scientific community recognises the role of Women in STEM fields and aims to address some of the barriers
that have led to the lack of gender parity in STEM.
This is an initiative that has been gaining momentum at GSCC for a number of years, and this year it was
bigger than ever. This year, students from Years 9 to 12 were lucky enough to participate in the
Pulse@Parkes program, run by CSIRO. This awesome webinar allowed the students to remotely control the
radio telescope in Parkes to look at pulsars in the universe and talk to some real-life astronomers and
astrophysicists. Pulsars are the radio signals created by neutron stars, which are the aftermath of super-
novas. The students asked lots of questions, including asking if any of the astronomers believed in aliens,
and were able to keep up with the difficult concepts covered, despite their young age.
After the Pulse@Parkes program, the students participated in Jeopardy to test their knowledge of Women in
STEM. We were lucky enough to be joined by Ms Cook, Ms Cornale and Mr Borg who offered a unique
perspective regarding their expertise in mathematics and technology, showing the co-curricular support that
these programs have.
Throughout the week, students in all years have been participating in a scavenger hunt, with each clue
relating to Women in STEM.
The Science department would like to extend its thanks to Rob Hollow and the team at the Parkes telescope
for their time and expertise. We would also like to thank our laboratory technicians, Mrs Thomas and Mrs
Hart for their assistance and Mr Grana and Mr Vannan for their support.