OFFICIAL OPENING AND BLESSING

It was wonderful to have our two most recent buildings at Magdalene blessed and officially opened yesterday.

A number of special guests were present to see the official opening of the Mary MacKillop Centre for Learning and the Alan McManus Hall. The official party included: Most Reverend Brian Mascord, Bishop of Wollongong, Mr Peter Hill, Director of Schools, Catholic Education Wollongong, Dr Mike Freelander, Federal Member for Macarthur, Sister Julie Simpson RSJ representing the Congregational Leader Sister Monica Cavanagh, Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart; Father Michael Williams and Mrs Cathy McManus. Other special guests included various members of Catholic Education Wollongong, neighbouring schools as well as Mr David Olsson, Campbeltown Catholic Club, Mr Peter Sidgreaves, State MP for Camden, our architects Ms Phoebe Glanville and Mr Charles Glanville from Alleanza and Mr Ivan Vuksic from Steve Watt Constructions.

I commend our students on their attitude and reverent approach during the event. I thank our singers and the student leaders involved as well as our Hospitality students who catered the event incredibly well.

It was great to hear the inspiring words from both Bishop Mascord and our Director of Schools, Mr Peter Hill. Both emphasised the rich opportunities that such facilities offer students and how the classrooms and the multipurpose hall provide chances for students to utilise their god-given gifts.

I am very grateful to all of our staff, Catholic Education Wollongong and our Federal Government for making such projects (totalling $13.5 million in project costs) possible.

Several photographs of the event are included below:

56^th Annual Campbelltown Catholic Club Mass and Luncheon

On Sunday 21^st August I attended mass at Our Lady Help of Christians, Rosemeadow with two of our students, Ben Rafferty and Justin Opalniuk.

The Mass was a part of the annual celebrations held by the Catholic Club to recognise the efforts of volunteers and supporters of the Catholic Club. The Catholic Club is well known to provide considerable funding to community groups, and those in need and they have been very supportive of our College – financially – in years gone by.

The Mass was an impressive one, co-celebrated by Bishop Mascord and Father Christopher Sarkis.

Bishop’s Award for Excellence

See Mr Bubb’s article below. I too recognise the achievements of Athena Fajardo.

ROAD CROSSING INFORMATION

The following information has been shared with students:

A reminder to students that if you are walking to or from school and need to cross Narellan Road, you must access the pedestrian crossing via the traffic lights. It is not safe to cross multiple lanes of traffic at any other section of the road.

If you need to cross Smeaton Grange Road of an afternoon you are not to cross between the parked school buses - walk to the end of the last bus and cross from this point only.

PRAYER:

On September 1 we celebrated the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation.

As such, St Francis’ Prayer, The Canticle of Creation is most fitting:

I would like to congratulate all the Magdalene students across the College who have been involved in the leadership process to select our College Leaders for 2023.

The Expression of Interest Letters from Year 7-10 have been outstanding and we have been pleased to see the vast amount of students who have taken a step out of their comfort zone in applying for SRC positions. We look forward to hearing from these students over the coming weeks when they perform their speeches for their year groups. We applaud them on their diligence and confidence in this process and wish them all the best.

We have also had a significant number of students apply for leadership positions in Year 11 for a range of 2023 College Leader positions from College Captains, various Councillor Roles and House Captains. We have been extremely impressed with the calibre of these individuals, displaying their strong leadership qualities not only in their application and speeches but in their active involvement in Leadership Day. 

As we review all applicants we will be deciding on the final applicants for these positions over the coming weeks and looking to inform students as soon as possible.

Once again we wish all students all the best in the process and we look to you as leaders, even if you are unsuccessful at this time.

Mr Matthew Bubb

Acting Pastoral Care Coordinator

On Saturday 27 August, two teams from Magdalene competed in the 2022 Tournament of Minds Regional Finals at Broughton Anglican College, along with Miss Sarah Manzin and Mr Marco Cimino. Tournament of Minds (ToM) is a program for all primary and secondary students providing the opportunity to solve authentic, open-ended challenges that foster creative, divergent thinking whilst developing collaborative enterprise, excellence and teamwork. 

The first team, made up of Emilia Leopardi (10), Keira Predl (10), Charlotte Cornett (9), Jessica Vida (9), Kailee Edgar (8), Aaron Leopardi (8), and Isla Attard (8) took part in the Language Literature challenge, and they write:

“Our team, ‘The Heroes Behind The Mask,’ participated in the Tournament of Minds Language Literature competition last Saturday. Our team has spent the last six weeks preparing a 10 minute presentation in response to our challenge. 

Our challenge was the following: Your team is to choose three antagonists from three different genres who join together to share their side of the story based on misconception of their personality, characteristics and motives in the text.

Our team of seven consisted of Walt Disney, The Witch (from Rapunzel), the Queen of Hearts, Dr Facilier, Rapunzel, The White Witch, and Tiana. We explained how these three villains aren’t actually the villains in their original stories, however, Disney made them out to be horrible villains. Our team created a script in the form of a song, created costumes, completed budgeting and paperwork in order to complete our challenge. We also completed a spontaneous challenge where we had five minutes to come up with a solution to a problem, and our team worked together to find the best possible solution.”

The second team, made up of Jasmine Mihok (10), Andraya Liebrand (10), Dominique Clapson (9), Henry Goldfinch (9), Isla Pearce (8), and Isibeal Abbey (8) took part in the Social Sciences challenge, and they were tasked with explaining how a mysterious ring was found, what it meant, and why it should be preserved. They chose to look at a halo, and debated the nature of it.

On Thursday the 25th of August, Magdalene students competed in the MISA Youth of the Year Competition. This is a MISA calendar event that celebrates the knowledge, work and perseverance of young people in Camden and surrounding communities. Amy Lollback and Ryan Gow represented the College and did an extraordinary job!

In the interview component of the competition, the pair spoke about local, state and national issues that our community is faced with. For their prepared speech, Amy spoke about women in sport and Ryan spoke about artificial intelligence. Both speeches were articulate, informative and thought provoking. 

Amy and Ryan are commended on their preparedness for the competition and their willingness to participate and be proactive in mentoring sessions. They worked diligently in the lead up to the competition and did our College community proud. 

Thank you Amy and Ryan for your service to our College and your fantastic work last week!

Mrs Catherine McLaren

Please note that all students will transition into the FULL SUMMER UNIFORM on Monday 5 September 2022.
The Noone Uniform Shop is open:
Mondays:  7.30am to 12.30pm
Thursdays:  10.30am to 3.30pm
The online shop is also available  https://www.noone.com.au/school/magdalene-catholic-college/shop

Year 9 Students only – the 2nd hand uniform shop will be open Mondays 7.45am – 8.15am

Well done to all Year 9 students for participating in the Pastoral Care Day held on Wednesday 24th August. The focus of the day was to support student wellbeing. Students were involved in three sessions throughout the day and are to be commended on their level of engagement. 

Session 1 was run by an external presenter, Daniel Merza, focusing on mental health, goals, resilience and motivation. Session 2 involved a variety of team games to promote teamwork, communication and fun. Session 3 allowed for ‘student voice’ to contribute towards the redesign of Pastoral Care lessons.

Thank you to the Year 9 Pastoral Care team for supporting the students.

Mr Tim Manns

Year 9 Coordinator

FOOD: Did you know…

You are probably aware that the current state of our world is critically dependent upon the integrity, functionality and efficacy of regional and global food systems, i.e. the entire chain from food production, processing, distribution all the way to the consumption of food. Yet, many food systems are under serious threat of being broken, thus exacerbating poverty, hunger and climate change.

A new level of leadership is required to ensure food security and sustainability in the world. At UNSW, with a view on personal health, planetary health and economic health, we have been significantly revamping our curriculum in the food and nutritional sciences to develop young professionals who can live up to this enormous challenge.

It is important to get a glimpse into challenges and miracles linked with food science and nutrition research both at the fundamental and applied levels.

At the UNSW, programs in Food Science & Technology and Nutrition are geared to develop young minds eager to build a sustainable world for generations to come.

1. Did you know that eating certain foods in combination can change how much iron you absorb?

In Australia it is estimated that 1 in 4 females and 1 in 30 males do not meet their daily iron intakes according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, putting them at risk of iron deficiency. Being iron deficient can make you tired, reduce your ability to focus, and decrease your performance on the sporting field. Girls are more prone to deficiency than boys. You are all at an age when iron intake and absorption is important.

By adding some vitamin C (i.e., orange, capsicum, or broccoli) you can increase how much iron you absorb! However, eating a food with a lot of calcium in it (i.e., milk or yoghurt) can reduce how much iron you absorb.

2. Did you know fermentation makes coffee smell and taste better?

The coffee beans we use to make coffee are processed either by the wet or the dry method. In the wet process, coffee cherries are de-pulped, and the beans are submerged into water for 24-36 hours. In the dry process, the beans are usually dried by natural sun drying to about 10% moisture and then

de-pulped. In both the wet and the natural drying processes, microbial fermentation plays a vital role in determining the quality of the coffee beans and, ultimately, the coffee beverages. Both yeasts and bacteria are involved in the fermentation. These microbes utilize nutrients on the surface of the coffee beans, such as sugars and amino acids, and turn them into a wide array of compounds, known as metabolites. Many of these microbial metabolites are volatile, aromatic compounds which contribute to the overall taste and flavour of coffee beans and coffee beverages. Although we have a general idea of the importance of microbial fermentation to the quality of coffee, there are still many things we do not know about them. For example, we do not know whether it is the yeasts or bacteria, or both, that are more important to the fermentation process. And for yeasts and bacteria, we do not know which species and strains are contributing to coffee flavour.

3. Did you know spray drying turns liquid into powder?

Most of the food products we consume, such as bread, ice cream, instant coffee, juice, canned soups, processed cheese, and many others, contain ingredients that are often added as powders. Spray drying converts liquid into powder and is a crucial process in the food and dairy industry. A typical spray dryer has a nozzle which atomises the liquid feed into millions of droplets, which come in contact with hot air inside the drying chamber. The heated air evaporates most of the moisture from the droplets, converting them into solid powders. The liquid feed typically has 10-20% of solids content, and in some cases up to 50% solids or higher. Since there is a lot of energy consumed in heating up the air, higher solids content in the feed could save energy as there is less moisture to be removed. But there are limitations as liquids with higher solids are harder to pump and may also block the nozzle during operation.

Why powders? Ingredients in powder form have the advantage of longer shelf life, ease of storage and transport, and convenience. However, they also need to be rehydrated (usually by adding water) back to their original form and function. For example, milk powder should be able to dissolve quickly in water to resemble fresh milk for consumption. Spray drying conditions are therefore important for the quality of the powder – if the air temperature is too hot, it may damage the powder properties, causing it to be less soluble, which may affect the taste of the product (‘burnt’ taste). The other important factors are the composition and the properties of the liquid feed. A wide variety of foods that exist in liquid or semi- liquid forms (extracts, milk, juice, eggs, etc.) can be spray-dried to convert them into powders.

Next time you browse through the supermarket aisles, pay attention to food items that are sold in powder form, or may contain dry powder ingredients. Most likely they are produced by spray drying!

4. Did you know the pungency of chilli peppers is not a taste?

We all know what it tastes like to bite into a red-hot chilli pepper - be it intentionally or by mistake. The sensation travels across the tongue, burn spreads throughout our mouth and eventually our heads feel hot with some of us breaking into a sweat all over scalp and face. The perception of spiciness which many of us enjoy while eating spicy food, is not at all taste or gustation and rather a manifestation of pain instead. On our tongue we not only have receptors for the classical five taste modalities of sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami, we also have receptors for pain and temperature stimulation. Capsaicin, the molecule in red hot chilli peppers, which is responsible for this perception,

5. Did you know that (cow’s) milk allergy and milk intolerance are caused by different biological mechanisms?

Milk is a nutritious food and ingredient with functional properties that are used widely in many food products. But some people cannot drink milk because their body reacts to it. The symptoms they experience vary widely from flatulence or stomach pain to diarrhoea, wheezing, swelling of lips, and hives. Milk intolerance, better known as lactose intolerance, is caused by a lack of an enzyme called lactase in the body to break down lactose to sugars called glucose and galactose. This process of breaking down lactose occurs in the small intestine where lactase is located. Lactose that is not broken down in the small intestine passes through the large intestine and gets similarly utilised by the gut microorganisms through a fermentation process. Gas produced by this process causes flatulence and other symptoms of milk intolerance. The symptoms usually develop 2-3 hours after eating/drinking milk and are NOT life-threatening. Did you know that lactose-free milk is sweeter than whole milk? This is because lactose-free milk is produced by adding more lactase into milk to break down lactose during milk processing, and both glucose and galactose derived from lactose breakdown are sweeter than lactose.

Cow’s milk allergy is caused by the immune system. Our body produces a protein called immunoglobulin, commonly known as an antibody, which is part of the immune mechanism. One of the antibodies called immunoglobulin E (in short IgE) is produced when our body is sensitised to milk proteins. IgE binds to milk proteins causing the release of chemicals such as histamine. Milk allergy or the allergic reaction usually occurs within 15 min of milk consumption and can be life-threatening. People with cow’s milk allergy could also react to milk or dairy products made from goats and sheep. This is because milk proteins from goats and sheep share many similarities with cow’s milk proteins.

Did you know that people with a milk allergy who cannot drink milk can still eat certain foods containing milk such as muffins or cakes and or biscuits? Food processing can change the milk proteins' structure, making them unable to bind to IgE and cannot initiate an allergic reaction.

6. Did you know that fruits are alive?

We all know that one of the main functions of a fruit is to spread seeds and allow the plant to reproduce. Fruits accumulate water and nutrients from the plant, and they use these nutrients to create their flesh and seeds. Fruits are generally hard and unattractive to predators—including us! After seed development and fruit growth, the fruit ripens when it is more attractive. During ripening, there is an increase in the breakdown of starch inside the fruit, and a corresponding increase in the amount of simple sugars, which taste sweet, such as sucrose, glucose, and fructose. Through ripening, fruits become sweet, colourful, and soft. The properties of the fruit. The correct oxygen concentration surrounding fruits during storage is related to the complex mechanisms of gas exchange, respiration, and fermentation in the fruit. Changing the concentration of oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide on the environment surrounding the fruit, and reducing temperature, the rate of respiration is greatly altered bringing the biochemical processes inside fruits into slow motion. How do food scientists and technologists take advantage of this understanding? Firstly, we know that by modifying the composition of the air surrounding fruits during storage, and reducing temperature, fruits are put into “hibernation”, so they can take several months before ripening, and that is why we can enjoy apples every day of the year even if they are out of season. Secondly, by knowing the temperature profile of fruits during transportation and storage, we can predict the precise time of ripening so consumers can enjoy fruits at the onset of ripening.

Hopefully, these examples can give you a snapshot into the exciting world of food science and technology! Interested in finding out more about food science? Consider doing food science at UNSW

Me at work…..year 8

Last week each student in Mr Dowdell’s year 8 group worked on a resume that would help them secure their first job. With their life and work experience limited in most cases, they were guided by a crew of year 10 students on how to express their career goal and dig deep for employability skills they may already possess!

Jasmine Lucas of year 10 was one of the successful applicants for the Airforce work experience last week.

CANTEEN – VOLUNTEERS REQUIRED!

Our College canteen cannot function without the valuable help of parent/carer volunteers daily. 

It would be greatly appreciated if you could assist in any way - once a week, once a month, once a Term or any other time that you specify. 

Each day, volunteers are required at the following times, you can do one session or two totally your choice:

Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday

9.30am to 10.30am

12.30pm to 1.30pm

Tuesday

10.30am to 11.30am

12 noon to 1.00pm

If you are able to assist, please contact the College office on (02) 4631 3300 or email us at info@mccdow.catholic.edu.au and our Canteen Coordinators will be in touch.

Upcoming Roster

Some Australian native birds including Magpies and Plovers which breed during Spring may begin to exhibit swooping behaviour. During August to October these birds may perceive people including children, cyclists, pets or other animals as threats to their nests and young and may swoop.

You can reduce your chances of being swooped!

Pedestrians:

• Avoid the nest site and use an alternate route if possible;
• Do not deliberately provoke or harass the birds, as this may make them more aggressive;
• Walk calmly through the area - DON’T RUN;
• Protect your head with a large, wide brim hat or carry an open umbrella. You can place eyes on the back of hats and umbrellas to reduce the likelihood of the bird swooping;
• Wear glasses to protect your eyes;
• Keep an eye on the bird as they are less likely to swoop if you look at them; and
• Make a temporary sign to warn others.

Bike riders:

• If possible, take an alternate route;
• Dismount from your bike and walk through the bird’s territory;
• Wear a helmet and sunglasses; and
• Fit a bike flag to your bike or try attaching cable ties or fake eyes to the back of your helmet

Remember:

Stay calm. Accidents can occur when people, particularly children, panic. Swooping behaviour is temporary and will cease after breeding season.

Magpies and Plovers are protected by the Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016 and harming these native birds and/or their nests is illegal.

For more information visit: Swooping Birds » Camden Council (nsw.gov.au)