STEM MAD National

CNA (Catholic Network Australia) executive requested that STEM MAD National take place in association with this year's CNA Forum in Melbourne in September 2022.

STEM MAD National will be a celebration of the nation's best primary, secondary and 'Future is STEM' student teams who will be invited to Melbourne for a live showcase where they will be presenting their projects to the CNA Forum delegates and their fellow students. Student teams from remote dioceses will have the option of participating in the showcase digitally and attending remotely.

Participating schools should:

• Undertake a STEM activity in your school. We'd encourage this to be part of your planned Curriculum. For example, students could participate in Minds@work, and then submit their project again for STEM MAD judging.

• Complete the internal showcase/presentation and moderation by the end of Week 2 Term 3 (22nd July) Provide a 90 second Flipgrid video

• Provide a 90 second summary video to National moderators for review and final determination.

• Apply the STEM MAD project criteria. (See Information for Schools)

• Understand the three STEM MAD entry areas – Primary, Secondary and the future of STEM.

• There will be scope for virtual participation in the STEM MAD national event. However, the number of virtual participants will be restricted to approximately 20 projects.



What is STEM education?

What if our implementation of STEM promoted STEM as something curious and exciting? What if we could encourage innovation?

What if we could encourage our children to not give up the dream, to never stop challenging and innovating, and to think about solutions to the big problems that they know exist around them.

STEM is not an extra.It's an integrated approach to teaching and assessing Science, Technologies and Maths in a unit where these disciplines have meaningful connections for students. General Capabilities like Numeracy, ICT Capabilities and Critical and Creative Thinking should be evident.

Dispositions such as collaboration, innovation, creativity, curiosity, communication, flexibility will be developed alongside inquiry, problem solving, social skills and design thinking.1


1.https://sites.google.com/rok.catholic.edu.au/stem/stem-in-the-curriculum