Nobel Prize winner leads physics master class at Dulwich Pudong
Our Senior School students were this week given the rare chance to explore the secrets of the universe with a Nobel Prize winning scientist, during a fascinating master class held in partnership with the Australian National University (ANU).
Dulwich Pudong provides a range of world-class experiences and opportunities for our students. This week, we were proud to host a visit by Professor Brian Schmidt of the ANU, who was awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics for his contribution to the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe.
During the master class, Professor Schmidt, a former Vice-Chancellor and President at ANU, spoke to students about some astronomy’s unsolved mysteries and how new telescopes are being used to explore the universe as never before. He then invited a range of thoughtful and informed questions from the audience of around 180 IGCSE and IB Physics students and their teachers.
The event was followed by the grand opening of Planet Hack, an annual collaborative hackathon hosted by ANU’s College of Science and Medicine in partnership with Education in Motion, which runs the Dulwich College International family of schools. Professor Schmidt announced that the theme of this year’s two-day hackathon, to be held on 31 October and 1 November, would be ‘Affordable and Clean Energy’.
Speaking afterwards, Professor Schmidt shared how much he had enjoyed the event.
The students were very attentive and asked good, hard questions. They have so much curiosity and they're very idealistic, so I get a huge amount of energy from talks such as these.
He also spoke about the value of a well-rounded holistic education and the value of events like Planet Hack.
I think it's important to be balanced, across science, technology, arts, humanities. That is what makes people outstanding in their professions in the years to come. I often tell parents who ask, ‘what should I do for my son or my daughter to be great?’, to make them work on things that they're not very good at, such as theatre, music. I really believe in a rounded education as the key for people having great lives and great opportunities.
On Planet Hack, he added: “Planet Hack is a way for people to take everything from history, English, science, engineering, and put it together to solve a problem right now. They’re going to realize that they can have ideas right now that are going to be as advanced as what most people in the world are already having. It's teaching them that they can attack hard problems using the skills they're learning in school.”
Dulwich Pudong offers an innovative cross-disciplinary curriculum that combines science, technology, engineering, arts, maths, entrepreneurship and environmentalism and teaches students real-life skills fit for the 21st century.
Students have multiple opportunities to expand and apply their knowledge outside the classroom, through a wide range of co-curricular activities and events like Planet Hack.
