News Archive

More than 200 year nine students from Peel partner schools joined 500 of their peers from Perth schools last week to participate in the eighth annual Aspire UWA Race around Campus.

The students had the opportunity to explore UWA’s campus, take part in a range of activities across a number of disciplines and engage in some friendly competition.

Students got hands on experience participating in activities like plastering, property and share investing, building water filters and Kung Fu.

The event was supported for the first time this year by Aspire UWA’s major partner the Alcoa Foundation and its Year 9 community partner Water Corporation.

Coodanup College student Paris Spicer, from Greenfields, said the event was a great opportunity to learn about the different courses on offer, and engage in friendly competition with other schools.

“I’m interested in studying teaching when I finish school because I think it will be great to make a difference in students’ lives,” she said.

“It was great to see the UWA campus and the different facilities available to me which I wouldn’t otherwise know about.”

Aspire UWA’s School Partnerships Coordinator Elisa McGowan said the event aimed to give students a taste of campus life.

“For many of the Peel students, Race around Campus was their first opportunity to visit the UWA campus, and participate in Aspire UWA activities,” Ms McGowan said.

“Not only was it great for students to engage with each other, but the different activities gave them a taste of different disciplines, to help them work out what they may want to study when they finish school, and what careers might interest them.”

Of the six activities running each day over the five day event, three were run by student organisations, with student volunteers also assisting with the other activities.

Aspire UWA’s Student Ambassadors, current UWA students, accompanied the groups as they made their way around campus, sharing stories about life at UWA.

Alcoa of Australia Chairman and Managing Director Michael Parker said it was terrific to see students from the Peel Region benefiting from Alcoa’s partnership with UWA.

“I hope that the on campus events help to demystify university for the participating students and in doing so breakdown some of the barriers to a tertiary education they may have,” Mr Parker said.

Students from Waroona DHS sampled even more of university life, with an overnight stay at Trinity College. During the one-night camp, the students experienced the college lifestyle and participated in team building activities.

Image: Students from Coodanup College participating in Kung Fu during the Aspire UWA Race around Campus

Media references

Elisa McGowan (School Partnership Coordinator, Aspire UWA)                         (+61 4) 31 925 198