SOME students spend their school holidays relaing, but one Portland Secondary College (PSC) student spent her holidays at the 43rd Professor Harry Messel International Science School (ISS).

Year 11 student Gina Shemeld was one of just 150 secondary students from around the world who were invited to attend the science program founded by science Professor Harry Messel in Sydney.

Entry to the science school is highly competitive. Out of 1200 Australian students who applied, she was one of seven in Victoria to attend for the two-week school, along with students from the United States, India, Thailand, Japan, China, New Zealand, and United Kingdom, just to name a few.

The school was first introduced annually from 1958 to 1961 for just teachers to attend, until 1962 when Professor Messel opened it to senior secondary school students in hopes they would be encouraged to pursue a career in science.

The science school’s first international student was from New Zealand in 1962, then soon, students from other countries began to apply and were invited.

With a deep interest in biology, Portland’s Gina Shemeld was keen to attend science school at the University of Sydney and delve deeper into the world of science and its discoveries. A bonus was that the cost of accommodation and meals was covered.

“We did all different sciences, there was a biology lab where we got to do gel electrophoresis where you separate the sizes of DNA. That was really fun,” Gina said.

“We did chemistry, where we had to figure out what element we had. There was a bunch of different tests and then we got to use all the different equipment.”

Gina wasn’t the only person from PSC to attend though - science teacher Emma Clignett was also invited to come along and be in a leadership position.

Ms Clignett said she had attended the science school in 2013 when she was a year 12 student.

Before his death in 2015, she even got to meet Professor Harry Messel who insisted on referring to the students as scholars.

Gina and Ms Clignett saw each other regularly at the school.

Gina said she made some new friendships with international students and is keeping in regular contact with them.

“I actually found one of my friends from Thailand who also loved biology because biology is my favourite subject,” she said.

And her love for biology has been fed by the science school.

“I want to start off, by getting my undergraduate in biology maybe as a starting point, and then go from there. Because there's so many options,” she said.

“Seeing the labs at the University of Sydney, that was really fun, and we got to use all their facilities.

“I think research is definitely a field that I would go into.”