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NYSF Student Sophia Dalton

On Wed 26th Feb '25 our guest speaker was Sophia Dalton, a Year 12 Loretto College student, who our Youth Committee helped with sponsorship to attend the 10 day NYSF (National Youth Science Forum) in Canberra in Jan.

Sophia, a self-confessed science nerd gave a very engaging and thought provoking talk of presentations from high profile science practitioners and course information from tertiary education providers.

Sophia showed her keen STEM interest and spoke about topics including;

  • Ecological research
  • ANU’s Engineering Dept where they spoke about research such as the solar challenge between Darwin and Adelaide.
  • a visit to the Australian Government's cyber Hub (spooky stuff !)
  • a presentation from Dr Sam Webster from the Australian Space Agency (note Sophia has keen interest in Astro biology).
  • a visit to CSIRO to look at environmental Science and in particular the field work they do which surprised Sophia as she though be all Lab work.

Sophia enjoyed the opportunity to meet like-minded students and form solid friendships during her time at NYSF. Her only difficulty with the experience was that it presented too many education and career options in the STEM world!

We thank Sophia for her talk and wish her all the success in whatever field she chooses.

Supporting youth to participate in development programs such as RYLA, NYSF and RYE is very affirming for members of Rotary. The activities and subsequent public speaking opportunity for students is a great personal development exercise for them – a win win situation.