We are sponsoring a student, Sophia Lewis, for NYSF in January 2023. Sophia is just completing Year 11 at Botanic High and is jointly sponsored by our club and the Rotary Club of Unley.
NYSF stands for the National Youth Science Forum and its traditional format for the last 30 years or so has been a two-week residential program, initially in Canberra but more recently extended to include Brisbane and Perth, where attendees attend lectures, laboratories, and all sorts of site visits related to science and technology. There are also sessions where they learn about making presentations, preparing CVs, undertaking interviews etc.
With the advent of Covid, all this changed. The program is now run separately in each capital city over two weeks in January. Around 600-700 students attend, with about 40 of those in Adelaide. Students sign up for online "zoom" sessions where they can listen to talks and have discussions, but this is supplemented by local activities - visits, social events, etc.One of the great rewards of the program is the connections students make with other like-minded students interested in STEM subjects.
On Sunday, I attended a briefing/introduction for all the students who are attending NYSF next year, together with their families and mentors, at Charles Campbell College. It was an opportunity for the students to start getting to know each other, and each student had to introduce themselves, saying where they were from, who was sponsoring them and what they were thinking about doing post-school. The program was run by NYSF "staffers" - former NYSF attendees who come back in subsequent years to help run the program. Next year, after the program, we will get Sophia to come along to a meeting to tell us about her experience.