The common adage is that one should never discuss religion, politics or money in public spaces. I have noticed though that no one ever comments on my blog posts, so it’s time to talk a little politics (and what is happening in Stage 4).
I’m only a young lad at the tender age of 27 though I’m old enough to have lived through a ‘lifetime’ of federal, state and local elections. There is a commonality at every election I have witnessed – politicians invariably know how to “fix” education. This federal election the buzzword (or buzzwords) is definitely STEM. Since politicians are throwing your tax money around at STEM I thought that I must talk about how we are approaching STEM at CCSC.
At CCSC the focus is on student-driven Project Based Learning. STEM is its own version of PBL with cross- curriculum integration of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics – all taught through hands- on learning. (I should also mention the acronym STEAM here – it is a slightly different version that integrates ‘The Arts’ as well).
The trick is to make a compelling and engaging learning experience for students that also includes skill and content outcomes from the Board of Studies curriculum. For term three at CCSC Stage 4 students will complete a STEM project based on ancient Greek temples. The students will learn skill and content outcomes from the Australian curriculum (remember that election buzzword from 2006?) to create a model of an authentic ancient Greek temple. The project is completed over stages and involves all of the STEM disciplines interacting with each other.
For the science component, students research and then choose materials and tools that the ancient Greeks would have used to build stone temples.
For the technology component students will build their temples in the online building program, Minecraft (or other similar programs).
For the engineering component students learn tech-drawing skills to complete an architectural design of the temple.
For the mathematics component students will be using the arithmetic philosophy developed by the ancient Greeks, Pythagoras’ theorem, to aid the design of their temples.
An entertaining project like this shows students how interesting a career in STEM can be while implicitly showing how fundamental a STEM skill-set will be for the future economy.
All in all if you can’t decide what party to vote for, maybe vote for the party with the best STEM policy? Those can be found on the major parties’ websites.
Tania Tracey says
Oh no – please don’t feel ignored or neglected! I read all the CCSC blogs, but have a self-imposed “no commenting on or liking FB posts” – simply because I find FB so annoying for the most part! Yes, the STE(A)M skill set is important, and I believe my kids are very lucky to be at a college which is up with the latest thinking on the teaching of these subjects, and not just because an election is looming!