Australian Brain Bee Challenge State Final

The Australian Brain Bee Challenge is a prestigious and intellectually demanding international neuroscience competition for Year 10 students. Designed to stretch even the most academically gifted, the challenge tests students on complex topics such as brain anatomy, neural communication, neurological disorders and current advances in brain research. The day is hosted by university academics from Flinders University and the University of Adelaide. Students undertake a series of tests on the day, both individual and in a team.

This year the competition was held at the Adelaide Health and Medical Sciences building at the University of Adelaide. We had nine students compete at this State Final on Friday. It was a pressure-filled day. One of the questions involved students listing the 12 cranial nerves in two minutes - glossopharyngeal and vestibulocochlear to name just two!

Our team performed exceptionally well and placed second in the State in the Team Challenge. Congratulations to Adele (10RCRO), Paige (10BWHA), Sophie (10JDIV) and Paris (10BWHA).

A few fun facts:

• Since 2022, Concordia College has had 26 students reach the State Finals of this competition.
• We have placed in the top three in the teams' competition three times since 2022
• To prepare for this year’s competition, our nine students answered a total of 22,500 questions about the brain.

The Brain Bee Challenge is a wonderful extension opportunity and is of particular benefit to those students who wish to study in a medical field. It is also very useful to students who go on to study biology and psychology at SACE level. Well done to all who took part on the day and represented our school so beautifully.

Oliphant Science Awards

In more wonderful news, Concordia has had some great success in this year's Oliphant Science Awards. Find a more detailed article in this edition.

In 2025 we have had nine winners (1st, 2nd or 3rd place - exact placings will be announced at the Awards night later in the year) and five Highly Commended students from Reception–Year 11. There are several categories in the competition ranging from 'Games' to 'Programming, Apps and Robotics', 'Multimedia' and 'Scientific Writing'. Concordia students earned a top three placing in eight of the different categories within a range of age groups. This is exceptional given that there were over 3,000 projects entered this year. Of special note at the Concordia Campus were the following results: 

• Oliver (10BWHA) - Won a prize for 'Programming, Apps and Robotics' for his app to teach Greek and Latin root word stems in scientific words.
• First place for Laura (11RGOG) — 'Year 11/12 Multimedia' for her presentation on the Central Nervous System.

Emma Rieger
Enrichment and Extended Learning