Emanuel students are changemakers
Year 6 students at Emanuel School are taking on the challenge of changing the statistics of women in STEM fields, starting with shaping the minds of Primary students. After researching and learning about the United Nations Development Goals in 2017, the students designed a team of six superheroes, the STEAMA 6 (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics, Astronomy). These heroes seek to inspire younger students to be involved in STEM by highlighting real world applications.
The lack of diversity in STEM fields has been well documented in research and in the media. The Chief Scientist’s Report on women in STEM showed “a story of attrition” (Australian Government, 2016). This report highlighted that Australia loses female talent in primary, secondary and tertiary education, and how this impacts the workplace. The report also states that this is all despite there being no natural ability gender differences. This report along with many others highlight the importance of eliminating stereotypes and bias and empowering younger women with female role models. It is important engage and excite students in these fields in primary school.
The STEAMA 6 Project seeks to address these challenges. The students have used Design Thinking to find a problem in their community and develop a solution that involved a business plan, app development with support of mentors in the field. After reading several reports, the students came across a number of recommendations key steps towards gender equality in STEM. These included eliminating stereotypes and bias, emphasising real life STEM applications in teaching, rewarding hard work and developing confidence. They also learnt about the importance of role-modelling and building a culture around this. Given this data, the students were interested to see how younger Emanuel students identify with STEM fields. One way they have learnt about this is by having Year 3 students ‘draw a scientist’. They analysed this data, a small snapshot that showed a connection to what was happening in the world in STEM professions. It connected to the data in the Chief Scientist’s report (2016). The students have met mentors from STEM fields, Roisin Parkes (Gumtree Chief Technologist), Elizabeth Hannah (Merck Medical Researcher) and Oliver Gordon (Aerospace Engineer). The girls were able to ask them about their experiences at school, university and work and learn about what inspired them into their fields. Learning from people in the field also helped the girls to define their problem and refine their prototypes.
“Experiences like this are important for students to develop transferable enterprise skills such as interdisciplinarity, creativity and technical skills as well as foundational dispositions such as collaboration and persistence.”
“The partnerships we are developing as part of projects like this offer our students the opportunity for depth and challenge, as they learn from an expert in the field. They also offer our students a window into the practical application of their interest areas, highlighting the possible pathways to talent development, as they make real world connections. We are always interested in exploring future opportunities like this.”