Last week we celebrated STEM Fest at Woodend! This event marks a celebration not just of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, but of our young people learning to be creative, innovative, and empathetic communicators, collaborators, and change-makers.

As always, STEM Fest (previously known as STEAM Week) provided opportunities for our community to come together – with parents and caregivers sharing their STEM-related careers or hobbies, families taking part in our design challenge, scientists visiting to share their areas of expertise, and our community seeing our students’ learning and problem-solving in action at our expo.

Thank you to all the families who participated in the Investigate the Universe family design challenge! It was a particularly tricky theme this year, and once again we were blown away by the number of thoughtful and creative designs. This area was a highlight of our Expo, with many families and classes spending time reading about, playing with, and exploring the wonderful ideas on display.

We also appreciate the efforts of our staff in celebrating that STEM is a Journey, not a Destination, by showcasing the process of learning across their classes. This year, the focus was on highlighting the thinking that takes place throughout the design process.

Thank you to those families who attended the Expo on Thursday evening or Friday. Despite the unfavourable weather, your presence helped make the event such a success. The Expo allows our young people to see that their effort matters and that they are contributing to something larger than themselves.

A whole-school puzzle unfolded throughout the week as we worked to uncover the mystery message being sent via the satellite that appeared outside Mr Freeman’s office. Students worked together, drew on prior knowledge, thought about their thinking, and made predictions as the mystery evolved. A special thank you to the Tonkin family for donating parts for the construction of the satellite, and to the STEM team for bringing this exciting project to life.

Finally, we are very grateful to our many visitors who volunteered their time to speak with students about their occupations and interests. In particular, we would like to acknowledge our visiting scientists and mathematicians, some of which have been recognised as South Australia’s Tall Poppy Awards. These scientists, mathematicians, and parents/carers inspired our students with their passion, thinking, and provocations for the future. These include:

• Ashokkumar Manaharan – Ashok’s research expertise is in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion particularly in hospitality on people with intellectual disabilities and culturally diverse workers. He challenged our Year 5/6 and 6 classes to better understand inclusion as it links to this age group’s interests.
• Dr Alexandra Whittaker – is a trained veterinarian, animal welfare scientist, and lawyer. Her work involves developing new tools for assessment of animal welfare. Our Year 3 and 3/4 classes worked with Alex exploring the many emotions and behaviours of animals and how we can better care for them
• Dr Emma Parkinson Lawrence – a Biomedical Research Scientist and Program Director at the University of South Australia. She enjoys investigating how proteins that don’t work properly in our cells can cause disease. She supported our Year 4/5 classes to better understand experimenting and testing in science
• Deb Lasscock – loves everything to do with Maths and she challenged our Year 2 classes with several problems
• Dylan – our Year 1 classes went to the garden with Garden Specialist, Dylan to learn all about soils, worms and worm farms
• Jess – our supportive SSO worked with our Reception team with the planting process to attract many more insects to our Young Street garden
• The many parents and carers who visited classes to share their professions or interests, providing students with new ways of thinking and understanding our world. Thank you to everyone who made the time to be with students during STEM Week – it is a highly valued part of our STEM Fest program!

Please enjoy some snapshots from the week!