• Home
• Partners
• Interactive Learning
• Curriculum
• Student Previous Projects
• Teacher Previous Projects
• Media

What is the 'Growing Tall Poppies' Experience?

"An experience that you wouldn't get elsewhere, it was challenging, exciting and different." - Amelia Hamer (Student participant)

"The Growing Tall Poppies (GTP) program is a collaboration between Santa Maria College Northcote, supported by the Catholic Education Office Melbourne (CEOM), and the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coherent X-ray Science (CXS), a multi-university and interdisciplinary research organisation headquartered in the School of Physics at the University of Melbourne. AKORN Educational Services also plays a strong role in the program as a contributor."

Dr Barone-Nugent, from Santa Maria College has designed a curriculum to engage the students in the work of CXS. Students' outcomes are achieved through projects designed to guide, but not limit, students' participation in the research conducted by CXS physicists, biologists and chemists. The outcomes are aligned with the VELS and IB MYP curricula.

CXS is composed of seven research programs across four Melbourne universities (University of Melbourne, La Trobe University, Swinburne University of Technology and Monash University) and one in Queensland (Griffith University). Each Melbourne-based program hosts groups of six highly motivated students to work for a period of one week with scientists on current research projects. The students are actively involved in the projects in an authentic manner to promote questioning and enquiry to create enduring knowledge and understanding of science.