Community & Business
8 November, 2025
Girls taking on science world
YOUNG women are powering ahead in science at Mareeba State High School, with four girls achieving great results in various competitions and earning spots at different upcoming camps.
Year 9 students Kahlia Sellers, Ava Willoughby, and Amy Fink, as well as Year 11 student Deshontae Richards, have shown a keen interest in the world of science and are striving towards to their dreams.
Kahlia achieved in the top 15% in Australia in the Big Science Competition – a difficult competition testing science knowledge, critical-thinking and problem-solving skills.
Due to her outstanding results, Kahlia was invited to attend the Curious Minds Engineering Camp – a week-long camp in Adelaide designed to connect students with industry experts and participate in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) activities.
“I am excited, I’ve never been on any kind of STEM camp before. I’ve also never been outside Queensland or New South Wales, so it’d be interesting to go down there and see what it’s like,” Kahlia said.
“I’m looking forward to meeting other people who are interested in similar things to me, because there aren’t a lot of people up north here.”
Amy will also be attending the Curious Minds camp in December after being eligible through her high results in science subjects at school. She said that she was “excited but also very nervous” and was looking forward to learning about biology.
“I’m interested in nursing and aged care, so I like learning about the human body,” she said.
“I’m also interested in nutrition and learning how different foods do what in our body and how that all works together.”
Ava came second in the 2025 DPI Hermitage Schools Plant Science Competition where she photographed and identified different insects.
She was awarded a $5,000 Earthwatch Student Challenge Fellowship and will join researchers at Calperum Station on a week-long expedition next October to study ecosystem recovery along the Murray River in South Australia.
Ava was over the moon with her success.
“It felt amazing, honestly, because I’ve been trying very, very hard to get into more things in the science field because it’s something that I am very passionate about,” she said.
“I am quite interested in the agricultural side of it, but I’ve always been interested by anything in the STEM field, really.”
She said she was really looking forward to researching with professional scientists.
“It’s insane. I can’t believe that I actually got into it, I wasn’t expecting it and I am extremely excited to go,” Ava said.
Deshontae will be off to the week-long National Indigenous Summer School in Canberra at the end of the month where she will visit the prestigious Australian National University (ANU).
“The program will teach us about different subjects or courses that we can take when we’re at university,” she said.
“I want to study either a Bachelor of Arts or a Bachelor of Archaeology. I like the visual arts, like painting and drawing, and I want to expand more of my knowledge when it comes to visual arts specifically.
“I’m planning to become an archaeologist when I’m older. I like learning about different cultures around the world, and especially here, and there are a lot of artifacts that haven’t been found yet.
“I’m excited and nervous at the same time because this will be my first ever time going out of Queensland.
“I think what I’m looking forward to most is meeting new people. It’s my chance to become friends with people and try to learn different things.”
