Scotch College

Hands=on Economics for Year 11 students

Left to right: Year 11 Economics students, Warwick Kelly, Joshua Wickham, Rohan Scotton and Tim Mitchell preparing lunch at Oznam House

Visits to welfare agencies provided 60 Year 11 Economics students with the opportunity to understand why income inequality exists in our community, and to see support services in action.

The aim was for the students to gain a balanced view of issues related to Australia’s level of prosperity and its continuing economic growth, as part of the major Year 11 Economics course topic, ‘Creation and distribution of income and wealth’.

Acting Head of Economics Mr Rob Cavalin organised one-day placements with welfare agencies, some students visiting organisations such as Urban Seed (as a whole class), and others visiting in groups of two or three. Students performed duties such as cleaning, sorting, talking to clients or serving meals.

Scotch is grateful to all the organisations which helped with this activity, including Urban Seed, Sumner House, the Coolibah Day Centre, Carrical House and Oznam House.

George Patouras
Economics Department

Chess success in Dubai

Year 9 student Derek Yu travelled to Dubai to participate in an international tournament for under 14 chess players. Derek performed very well, winning six out of nine games in the tournament, and was placed equal 18th out of 146 players.

This was an outstanding result, given that the field included a select group of top players invited from all over the world.

Derek was subsequently selected to represent Australia in the under 16 World Chess Olympiad, held in Turkey in August – an outstanding achievement.

As a part of our study of temperate rainforests, the two Year 11 Geography classes took a field trip to the Toolangi State Forest, located to the north-east of Melbourne.

We were met by a local ranger, who gave an informative talk about the history of the forest and some general facts about the surrounding area. After this we put on hard hats to protect us from falling tree branches. The towering mountain ash trees are known as ‘widow makers’, as they tend to drop their branches without any notice, even in calm conditions.

The group also investigated a recent logging site, where we studied the effects of logging on the environment and management’s rehabilitation of the site. Later in the day we explored a cool temperate rain forest that had not been burned by early fires such as the 1939 Black Friday firestorm. On the way home we visited Denby’s sawmill to see grading, log-sawing, timber kiln-drying and wood-chipping processes in operation.

Nicholas Atkinson and Tom Lowden
Year 11

Art excursion

Early in July two Year 7 Art classes visited the Leonardo da Vinci Machines Exhibition at the New Key.