A year 10 Kelmscott Senior High School student has been recognised as one of the most brilliant scientific minds of his age in the country.
Earlier this year Eric Xie was invited to join the Junior Science Olympiad Spring School after scoring one of the top 24 exam results in the country.
The Junior Science Olympiad is a challenging online exam held once a year for students in years 7 to 10.
The exam covers topics from a wide range of scientific disciplines including biology, chemistry, Earth and environmental science, and physics.
This year marked Eric’s third time entering the Junior Science Olympiad (JSO). In previous years, he had qualified to be selected into the JSO Training Squad – an accelerated learning program for the top 60 young students in regional, remote, and low socioeconomic schools.
“This was my first year being selected into the Spring School and I was very excited because I was given access to a lot of science that other kids my age wouldn’t have access to,” he said.
JSO Spring School is an eleven-day intensive residential school hosted at Australian National University in Canberra. Invited students get the chance to further extend themselves in hands-on practicals, challenging theory examinations, and in-the-field research, while developing new friendships with like-minded students from across the country.
It’s also an opportunity to use world-class science facilities and meet world-renowned experts in their fields.
“One of the more memorable experiences was working with microscopes to look at cells, specifically bacteria cells found in yoghurt,” Eric said.
“We also performed a double slit experiment where we shot lasers at a gap to form interesting diffraction patterns.”
The famous physics experiment rather strangely demonstrates that light can exhibit the behaviour of both particles and waves.
In another experiment, students created iodine clocks.
“When you combine the starch found in potatoes with iodine it turns purple,” Eric said.
“We explored the time it takes for that chemical reaction to occur based on different volumes of iodine.”
Eric said Spring School was eye-opening for him.
“I made a lot of new friends, including two from Perth Modern,” he said.
“And I realised that I definitely want to be involved in STEM. When I was younger, I considered it, but now I know I want to focus on going down that career path.”
Following the intense learning sessions and further exams at the JSO Spring School, six students were selected to represent Australia at the International Junior Science Olympiad in Romania next month.
Each of the 24 students who attended Spring School were deemed to have remarkable potential, but only the brightest were given the opportunity to be on Team Australia.
“I was really surprised when one of my teachers called me to let me know I’d been chosen,” Eric said.
“I didn’t expect to make the team – the other kids were from the top schools around the country.
“I felt proud of myself.”
Eric was, in fact, the only student chosen from Western Australia.
‘I’m really excited to represent my country,” he said. “And this will help me develop the skills I need for my future.”
