Carol
Australia
G’day! I’m Carol and the mother of fourteen year old Hilary, who wrote the content for the site. I am also one of the 2 coaches of this very eager and diverse team. Australia, Indonesia and The Netherlands – students from 3 very different continents and climates which make for some very interesting conversations about the weather! Anneke, Willem, Sigit and Dirk-Jan it was a pleasure to work with you all…
I have been a coach for ThinkQuest since the 2000 competition and had the honour and privilege of coaching winning teams in the ThinkQuest Netherlands competition in 2001 and 2002 and also a winning team in the inaugural ThinkQuest Africa competition in 2003. Communicating with students from around the world is a source of great joy and happiness for me, teaching me how culturally diverse and rich this world is.
This team has been a pleasure to coach and I hope that Hilary doesn’t hate me too much for “driving” her to complete her rather daunting task. Giving up your summer holidays to work on this almost every day is a huge sacrifice, and there were several arguments about that! At least there was light at the end of the tunnel, even if it was back in the corridors of Newcastle High School ;-)
The efforts of everyone were magnificent, from deciding on the topic, then the title and then the designs – all was done in a very democratic and open way. I think you guys can finally see the fruits of your labours. For everyone else who visits this site, please enjoy and think about the impact that we do have on this fragile and wonderful planet.