More than 20 young members of Melbourne’s
Saudi Arabian community experienced life as a scientist at Hudson Institute on
Wednesday.
The primary and high school students, aged
10 to 17, heard presentations from scientists, toured cell therapies and
medical genomics facilities, and learnt about hand hygiene and infection in the
lab.
Mr Sultan Alhayyani, a PhD candidate in the
Centre for Innate Immunity and Infectious Diseases, who organised the visit, said the students were very engaged.
“They asked so many questions, they were
very interested in the equipment, and seeing the mice organs under the microscope,”
he said.
“The main reason for the visit is to
encourage children to get them excited about science. Here, they can talk to
scientists, go into the labs and understand what research is going on so that
they might want to become scientists one day themselves.”
“It changed my mind – it made me want to
become a scientist. It was everything, but mostly I liked the microscopy,” Lujian,
11, said.
Mohammed, age 8, said, “My favourite part
was looking at the imaging. The laser wasn’t just like any laser, it was a
different laser.”
Sultan is President of the Saudi
Association in Melbourne, which engages Saudi-born students from universities
across Victoria. Sultan says around 3000 Saudi Arabian citizens are living in
Victoria, with many here for study.
A new initiative of the Association in 2017
is the Future Scientists program, which engages Saudi-born children aged 10 to
17 in science through visits to scientific research centres across Melbourne.
Hudson Institute was the first visit.
Sultan would like to thank Hudson Institute staff, including Professor Brendan Jenkins, Professor Paul Hertzog, Dr
Saleela Ruwanpura, Dr Jennifer Dowling, Dr Virginie Deswaerte, Ms Vivien Vasic and the Platform Technologies team.
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