Curiosity drives young scientists Jack Roussos, Jordan Harrington and Hannah Wales. Hungry for knowledge, the three Inverell High School students were thrilled to be selected for the National Youth Science Forum recently.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
“I think that’s going to be awesome,” Hannah said.
The 30-year old Rotary-sponsored program gives a jump start to students with an interest in science, engineering and technology as they move into year 12. Applying wasn’t easy and the group were put through four rigorous 20 minute interviews in Walcha at the end of July. They were tested on their scientific and general knowledge and had to navigate their way through tricky ethical dilemmas without sitting on the fence.
“It’s pretty intense. You’ve got to know your stuff,” Jordan said.
Jack found it particularly difficult to decide whether he would prefer to use science to help a western country or a developing country.
“That was a hard one. If you say one thing, you sound really immoral and unethical and like you don’t care about the other one, so you have to really justify your answer.”
All three were grateful for their Inverell and Inverell East Rotary sponsors who helped them prepare and pay for the valuable trip.
Science is a true passion for Hannah, Jack and Jordan, who all hope for a scientific career path. Jack remembered his year seven science teacher in Hong Kong, who captured his attention with eye-catching experiments.
I was just really intrigued as to how she knew all this and how to do all this. I was just really fascinated. I just wanted to know more and to be able to apply it,” he said.
“Science was the way the human race understood things and how they could back up why they thought they were like that,” Jordan said. He liked that science was more concrete than the humanities, but still full of discovery.
“The more you know, the more you know you don’t know,” he said.
“I was just intrigued with how humans work,” Hannah said.
“Ever since I was introduced to science, I thought that it’s just amazing how we’re made up and what contributes to our make-up and everything. And I just thought researching and applying that to a job would just be an amazing thing to do.”