da Vinci Decathlon

Congratulations to all students who represented Pacific Lutheran College at the academic challenge, the Queensland da Vinci Decathlon, last week. The da Vinci Decathlon is designed to challenge and stimulate the minds of school students. Students compete in teams of eight across 10 disciplines: Engineering, Mathematics, Code Breaking, Art and Poetry, Science, English, Ideation, Creative Producers, Cartography and General Knowledge.  The Pacific Lutheran College students performed commendably each day against students from prestigious colleges across Qld. Particular congratulations go to the Year 9 team who came 2nd place in the Ideation discipline challenge, a place they also achieved last year.  

Mrs Jo Belchamber, Head of Learning Enrichment

Kate Monroe, Year 9 student at PLC documented her experience below:

Last week a number of students took part in the da Vinci Decathlon 2018 Queensland State Titles. Students across grades 5-10 travelled to A.B. Patterson College on the Gold Coast over the course of three days. In teams of eight, the students were ready to tackle problems in the subjects of Ideation, Science, English, Art and Poetry, Engineering, Mathematics, Cartography, Code Breaking, General Knowledge and Creative producers with this year’s theme being ‘The Unexpected.’ 

The teams divided the subjects among them according to each individual’s strengths during each of the three sessions as there were three or four subjects per session. I participated in the Ideation, Art and Poetry, General Knowledge and Creative Producers disciplines throughout the course of the day. I have been doing the Da Vinci Decathlon with PLC for two years, last year being the very first time our school participated. For both of the years, our team has achieved 2nd place in ideation. 

In the ideation discipline, students are presented with a current or future problem and background knowledge and are asked to give a clear answer showing deep thinking and thorough planning. Our problem was to demonstrate the need of, and provide a plan on how, the government and society should react if aliens invaded earth or tried to communicate. We were given two and a half hours to prepare a full response, which consisted of diagrams, planning sheets, references, implantation techniques and much more. A huge thank you is in order to Mrs. Ousley and Mrs. Belchamber who took on the role of organising our teams. They gave up weeks of lunch-times to train and support our teams as well as making the long two and half hour journey to the venue and back three days in a row. Thanks, on behalf of the team for shouting us some ice-creams from McDonalds! 

Overall, the Decathlon is an amazing opportunity for all students who participate, and each year teams are able to improve upon the previous year’s results, learn more about interesting and advanced subjects as well as achieve their goals and compete against other schools. It challenges thinking and teaches us to work hard for what we want and to always aim high. I am very grateful to have this opportunity and to have such wise adults to watch over and guide us.