STEAM News

Pi Day

Pi Day is celebrated around the world on March 14th to recognise the important maths symbol and constant of Pi. 

At Dromana College we celebrated this day outside the Language Centre at lunch with maths talk and party pies! In order to receive a party pie students needed to do two of the following: recite Pi to 5 decimal places, explain why Pi is rational or irrational, explain how Pi relates to a circle or state a formula that uses Pi. 

We also ran competitions for the best maths jokes, the best Pi story as well as seeing which student could recite Pi to the most decimal places. Well done to Jennifer Japha from Year    8IL who was our 2021 Decimal Place Competition champion, reciting Pi correctly to 166 places.

Technology - Design for Sustainability

For many years Dromana College had been working with new plastic to teach design principles to students. With the growing awareness of how destructive single use plastic can be to our environment, it had become apparent that our use of plastics was outdated. 

In order to address this issue, we procured some machines that allow us to recycle existing plastic instead of working with new. Our goal is to transform our waste into functional objects such as outdoor seating, signage and building materials. 

With involvement from students, we have introduced a new waste management system that will allow us to collect single use plastics to recycle. By working towards a closed-loop waste system we aim to provide students with the space and context to come up with ideas that will move our school towards more sustainable practices.

If you wish to collect your bottle caps at home and divert from landfill, we will gladly accept donations for use within our projects. Bring in your Clean bottle caps to the Design Area collection bin.

Here are some of the projects thus far created by students made entirely from recycled bottle caps.

These earsavers were a hit through mask wearing COVID times:

Bottle caps make great sheets for various projects:

Using injection molding techniques:

Our latest invention – recycled bottle cap skateboard:

Jamie Mudge

Design Technology Teacher