Tournament of Minds - What a Team!
On Saturday the 27th of August the St Thomas Aquinas Tournament of Minds(TOM) Team presented their solution to a STEM challenge and worked as a team to solve a Spontaneous Challenge. Their Long Term Challenge included many components but over five weeks the team showed dedication, ingenuity, collaboration, persistence and resilience to produce a scenario which addressed all of the criteria. They were required to:
- present a creative scenario about the discovery of a 300g nugget,
- identify the importance of gold over time and the significance of this discovery,
- design and make a platform to display the gold which moved at two different speeds for ten seconds and
- include a multimedia presentation of the design process!
What a task!!
Presenting at the ANU was quite overwhelming and they were all very nervous, but they should be so proud of the way they stepped up to the challenge to present. The team did not make it through to the next round but received the following impressive feedback from the judges:
- Use of Presentation Skill - props: Excellent
- Scientific Understandings of gold: Very Good
- STEM principles - explanation and demonstration: Good
- Overall dramatic performance: Excellent
- Comment from the judges: "This was a really thoroughly researched challenge and you were clear with your facts and reasoning within the play. Your hard work and attention to detail was evident - well done. Awesome props!!"
Feedback from their spontaneous challenge was:
"Great work on your enthusiasm for the task at hand. Thanks for the animated and energetic discussions."
We hope that there are a few Year 4's and 5's inspired to have a go at TOM next year!
