Five Grade 11 Holy Rosary School learners recently won the 2017 Wits Integrated Experience in Science and Commerce held at the University of the Witwatersrand.
The learners, Catherine Ryan, Megan Bertasso, Chrislin Nieuwoudt, Kelly Marcel and Theresa Kitele competed against learners from 15 other schools.
“I am very proud of them. Their hard work and perseverance paid off,” said Liesel Jacobs, HOD of science at HRS.
At the event, held on July 28, the Wits Faculty of Science Commerce, Law and Management (CLM) ran a short course to expose learners to skills and knowledge.
This was done to create awareness of the vast career opportunities within science and CLM, as well as the integrated nature of these disciplines.
On the day learners were exposed to specialist academics in science and CLM and gathered information related to an “impending meteorite impact”.
“I enjoyed being exposed to a different style of learning and it was a different environment competing against other schools,” said Kitele.
“The event was interesting and educational because a lot of people aren’t prepared for meteors and the after-effects they can have,” said Marcel.
The learners had to process data and propose how to deal with such a crisis from a scientific, economic and management perspective.
The ideas were explored and developed further in their school teams.
Once the ideas had been explored further the schools returned to Wits on September 15 to present their findings.
After presenting their findings to a panel of judges the HRS learners were announced the winners.
“I think we impressed the judges with the depth of our presentation,” said Nieuwoudt.
Ryan said it was nice to be exposed to different ways of thinking and learning.
Bertasso said it was nice working as a team.
