Sustainability at Gawler Food Forrest
On Tuesday 5 November, the Year 9 Geography students visited the Gawler Food Forest, which is designed as a permaculture-based, self-sustaining ecosystem. It was an enlightening and valuable experience that allowed us to explore and understand how a farm is managed sustainably. When we first arrived, we were greeted by Graham, who explained the details of permaculture through a PowerPoint. We were then given an array of fruits, nuts and native plants to try which were very unique. One of the highlights of the visit was a guided tour by the owners, who shared their insights and passion for sustainable living including their compostable toilets. These sustainable farming practices were inspiring for us, and we would love to go back some day!
Abbie and Ziyuan
Year 9 Students
Success at SACLO
On Thursday 24 October, we entered three Year 8 teams and a Year 10 team in the South Australian Computational Linguistics Olympiad. We have had considerable success in this competition both at the State (SACLO) level and also the National (OzCLO) level over the past few years and this year was no different.
The teams were tasked with deciphering problems involving Xhosa, or isiXhosa (one of the eleven official languages of South Africa, and the native language of Nelson Mandela), Murrinhpatha (an indigenous language from the Northern Territory), Egyptian hieroglyphs and Taa (a language spoken in Botswana and Namibia), amongst others.
One of our Year 8 teams (Leila, Julia, Chloe and Neela) took out first place in the Junior (Years 7 to 9) Division, followed closely by another (Luna, Jian, Cici and Ivy) in equal second with a team from another school. Our third Year 8 team (Ania, Chutong, Aarcha, Anika) placed a very respectable equal fifth place overall.
Our Year 10 team (Peyton, Beverly, Olivia and Valerie) who entered the Senior Division, placed third, up against students from Years 10 and 11.
We are very proud of the students’ efforts, especially considering that they only had a few lunchtimes this term to practise. It bodes well for our efforts in the national competition, OzCLO, in March 2025.
Cindy Pitkin
Head of Languages