Budding scientists from across the North travelled to Hobart on Wednesday to discover what life at university was really like.
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Thirty-two year 11 and 12 students will spend three days of their school holidays at the University of Tasmania as part of the 2017 Youth Science Forum.
Students from several Launceston colleges were given the opportunity to dissect a cane toad, use sonar tracking to spot bats, chat with experts, tour laboratories, and attend workshops on agricultural science.
Scotch Oakburn College student Eloise Knuckey said she was interested in studying medicine at university but was excited to learn about other scientific fields.
“It’s been good to see all the different opportunities that are available, especially if you talk to the staff and they can tell you all the experiences they’ve had,” Eloise said.
“I really enjoyed the agricultural session and also we had a scholarship session which helped us with our interests and how we can get a good scholarship.”
For Launceston College student Thomas Godfrey, Wednesday was his first trip to UTAS and he said it was exciting to see what life at university was really like.
“It’s been a really fun day – we’ve had a lot of interesting experiences and it’s been nice going around the university and seeing what the university’s like,” Thomas said.
“I’m interested in physics, so I want to go directly into physics after school.”
University of Tasmania Antarctic marine scientist Nicole Hellessey, who was overseeing a cane toad dissection, said the program worked to breakdown any barriers between college and university.
“A lot of science you do in high school is not what you do at uni so being able to show them that there’s so much more potential out there is really exciting,” Ms Hellessey said.
“These are the sorts of things they’ll be doing when they come to uni so it makes it a little bit easier for them to know they can do it and it’s achievable.”
Program coordinator Adele Wilson said the annual forum showed students the important scientific research that was happening in Tasmania.
The students will remain at UTAS until Friday.