The Stanford Pre-Collegiate International Institutes invite schools and organizations from around the world to bring academically talented high school students to Stanford University for a two-week introduction to American college life. Scotch College was fortunate enough to have been invited to be one of 12 participating organisations to take part in this enrichment opportunity.

Each year boys in the Year 10 Enrichment Programme attend a tour of ICRAR (International Centre for Radio Astronomy). Boys have an audience with the Director of the centre, Professor Peter Quinn, and attend lectures with astrophycists sharing cutting edge research in the field. Boys also get the chance to use a solar viewing telescope, a spectroscope and a Tiny Radio Telescope to measure the sun’s corona.

Each year Scotch connect with Curtin Engineering to learn about the latest jobs in the field and participate in some collaborative fast-paced, hands on activities in coding, rocket building and supply chain delivery competitions.

In 2016, Woodside, in collaboration with the Cisco Internet of Everything Innovation Centre at Curtin University hosted Year 10 Enrichment students and their parents for a night of innovation and pizza! Also on the menu was the role of big data and artificial intelligence in the modern era. Boys and parents collaborated on a design challenge to come up with a technological innovation that would increase student engagement.

In May of 2016, students participating in the Year 9 Enrichment Programme travelled to UWA’s School of Computer Engineering to partake in a bioengineering design challenge. Under the mentorship of Professor David Sampson, PhD research student Wes Allen, introduced the boys to his current research involving the development of new technological tools for breast cancer surgery.

Boys were taught the basics of optics and engineering assembly skills such as soldering. This is a great example of innovation and technology in Australia and we are very grateful to UWA for the opportunity. The challenge also gave our boys a little insight into post-school careers in this exciting multi-disciplinary field. Most importantly, this offered the boys the very human experience of designing a product that can be used to improve people’s lives in a global context.

The Perkins Profs program kicks of every April with a group of our most scientifically able and curious Year 10 science participating in extra curricular classes in the Lotterywest BioDiscovery Centre. The classes take place once a week, after school hours and involve hands-on research activities with a Perkins scientist.