Germany Trip 2024 - Part 1

We departed on December 1st for an exciting three-week journey in Germany. For most of the students, it was their first trip overseas, and many were eager to leave Perth for a new experience.

After arriving in Frankfurt, we travelled to Marburg, located 100km to the north, where the exchange families picked up the students. While in Marburg, we had the opportunity to visit a local Steiner School and explore their classrooms. Both students and staff were incredibly welcoming, and we greatly appreciated the time spent there. As the students were placed with families across the city, they became quite familiar with the public transportation system.

During our stay in Marburg, we spent our afternoons exploring the city and even took a day trip to Frankfurt to visit the Goethe Haus and take in the sights.

Stay tuned to the next issue, where we'll share our adventures from Hamburg and Berlin!

Jo Doernberg & Liesl Barnett
HS German and English Teachers

Class 11/12 Astronomy: Astrophotography 101

During the past two weeks, students form the Class 11/12 Astronomy class have been visited by SPIRIT program coordinator Tim Young. During this time, the students have learnt how to use the robotic telescopes and created stunning images of objects from the night sky.

The SPIRIT program is part of the education and outreach done by the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), in WA. It has four fully robotic telescopes that are used for education and research. Stationed in Mardella, south of Perth, the observatory offers students the opportunity to have hands-on involvement with astronomy and learn about the science that can be done. You can see three of the telescopes in the image below, including the newest telescope, a 1m reflector.

Across the two weeks, students have planned what objects they want to image and used the online interface with the telescopes to schedule their observing. After taking the observations through a range of colour filters, they used software to turn the black-and-white images into stunning colour images.

Students will continue to work with the SPIRIT telescopes to continue taking better and more breathtaking images, then explore the science that can be conducted with the telescopes.

Brett Kranz-Little
Physics Teacher