ARTICLES
Teaching and learning STEM in context at Belrose Public School (continued)
• “It was overwhelming, but when asked, the parents said it’s all
they have talked about!” (Teacher).
• “The school director and visiting teachers from other schools
all commented on how deeply the students understood
their projects, and could speak at length about the design,
coding and the created evolutionary history of their projects!”
(Principal)
• “Best thing this school has done!” (Parent)
• “Sasha has come home and is talking about what she’s doing,
and she’s hoping to be an engineer!” (Parent)
Fig.6 – Animal movement mechanisms – a) moving parts using
Little bits, b) reptile with articulated sections.
• From a younger student, “Can’t wait to do this when I get to
year 5!” (Teacher)
• “The girls smashed it. I am very, very proud of those girls!”
(Teacher)
• “It was so good I went home, got my neighbour and came
back!” (Parent)
• “These kids are dealing with conditional loops, and loops in
the coding are my bread and butter in my CRC manufacturing
business!” (Local Engineer).
Fig.7 - Mechanica-style - animals with adaptations suited to their
environments a) Bilby, b) Frog
Outcomes of the STEM learning experience
The school principal, Belinda Zorian, was shocked by the
massive response from the community to the showcase event.
The museum opened on Grandparents’ Day and we were excited
that about 150 grandparents came to visit the school during the
day. This was a great opportunity for the students to have a trial
run before the official event in the evening. We were amazed with
the number of parents and friends that came to the night event
– our Principal counted around 300 visitors. Chris can testify it
was ‘standing room only’ with people packed into the library to
see the exhibits and talk to the children about their creations (see
Figures 4, 5, 6 & 7). There were so many people that we had to
repeat the introductory video and organise staggered groups to
avoid over-crowding.
Fig.8 – Community reactions (school newsletter)
Design thinking
Students developed design thinking as a fundamental part of
creating solutions during the Mechanica project, an important
aspect of which was dealing with realistic time constraints and
the availability of resources (Albion, Campbell and Jobling,
2018). The museum showcase night was a hard deadline that
students had to meet (ready or not), which proved to be a good
lesson in terms of real-world experiences.
Three representatives of the STEM Academy attended the event
and witnessed first-hand the impact of the program. The principal
was overcome with emotion, she was “so proud” of the students’
ability to talk to the community members about their creations
and their learning during the STEM project. She was also grateful
for the support from the University of Sydney for “inspiring the
teachers” to develop an all-engaging learning experience that
had become the talking point of the school. Feedback from the
event is shown below and in figure 8:
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SCIENCE EDUCATIONAL NEWS VOL 68 NO 4