Alstonville student Lauren Singh selected for national science team

A Northern Rivers high school student has outsmarted more than 3000 other kids to be the only member of a national science team from outside a capital city.

Alstonville High School student Lauren Singh says her selection as the only regional member of a national science team came as a shock.

The 15-year-old has outperformed more than 3000 students nationwide to be one of six members selected in Australia’s first International Junior Science Olympiad team.

All the other students were from a capital city.

Lauren said she learned about the program while participating in the national Curious Minds program, which mentors female students in science, technology, engineering and maths.

She said her selection after sitting an exam came as “quite a big shock”.

“I just did the test because I thought well, the worst that could happen was I’d miss a couple periods of class and I’d learn something new in the exam,” Lauren said.

“There’s not really a downside and I thought well, I like science so I might as well try it.”

Year 10 Alstonville High science whiz Lauren Singh with head science teacher Allan Pelley.

The Year 10 student has learnt a significant proportion of Year 11 and Year 12 biology, chemistry and physics concepts in just five weeks of self-paced study to prepare for the international competition.

She has also completed a week-long intensive training camp to sharpen her knowledge.

“Because there are three subjects; there is biology, chemistry and physics, if I’m mentally blocked in one then I can go to one of the others for a bit,” she said.

“Changing it up helps to not get too stuck in something and also breaking it up so a bit before school and a bit after school so that you’re doing a lot of different things and it’s not all just the same thing all the time.”

Lauren said she didn’t get to do much science in primary school.

“When I got to high school there are like experiments you get to do in all these different areas you get to learn and I just found it very interesting,” she said.

She said she was also able to apply her studies to her hobby outside of the classroom, tennis.

“For example in physics there’s something called ‘impulse’ which is how long you apply a force.

“The longer you apply a force for, the more you change the velocity in a collision.”

She said she applied that concept to her follow through on her swing.

“That means you’re applying a force for a longer time which means the ball goes faster so I got to apply that and get better at tennis.”

Lauren Singh demonstrates an acid-base titration in her school science laboratory.

Lauren said her friends were a little confused as to why she would want to do science but still thought her achievement was “pretty cool”.

She said she was looking forward to participating in the international competition.

“I am excited … and a little nervous because it is quite a big competition, but I think it’ll be fun and I’ll get to meet all of my teammates in person and not just over Zoom,” she said.

“I think I’ll keep going to HSC and I think it’s actually helpful because a lot of the course work and the concepts I’ve learnt I’m going to be using in Year 11 and 12 science.

She and her team will head to Canberra in December for the competition.