This week our Year 5/6 students had the opportunity to present some of their big ideas to a panel of judges for the STEM+X Futurists' Fair. It was so wonderful for them to have an authentic audience; what a positive message for them that their voices matter and that there are people willing to listen to and believe in their ideas. I hope that it will be an experience that stays with them throughout life.
Each group has been working on different STEM solutions for how they would help to improve Australia's future. This is one of the group's ideas:
"We love STEM because we get to do hands-on learning and solve real problems. We get to do the thinking for ourselves and learn about things we are interested in and passionate about."
"We learn about things that might help us in the future. We learn skills that will help us no matter what type of job we want, like working together and thinking critically."
"Thank you ABCN and NBN Co. This program has helped us to realise that we can use STEM to help our world to be a better place. We have learnt that we CAN make a difference in our own lives and the lives of others. We have learnt how to work together and how to compromise when we all had different ideas. We have learnt to be curious and to ask the big questions."
"We have become better problem-solvers and it has helped us to have more resilience when things don’t go the way we originally planned. We have learnt that mistakes are all part of the design process. We have learnt that our ideas are awesome!"
