Women in STEM

Year 7 & 8 workshops

Over the past month, a group of 12 Year 9 and 10 students have been participating in the Women in STEM Future Leaders program at RMIT. The STEM Leaders learning is guided by Women in STEM Ambassadors who are current RMIT students studying a variety of courses including engineering and physics. It was really great to catch up with ex-student Courtney Sidwell who is studying physics at RMIT. 

On Wednesday 18th June, the Year 9 and 10 STEM Future Leaders delivered a series of practical STEM workshops for around 40 interested students of all genders in year 7 and 8. It was great to see the students interacting with each other constructively and the STEM Leaders supporting each other to teach the junior students about the science & technology in their workshop.

The four workshops centred around sustainable technology:

• Wind power
• Solar power panels that follow the sun
• An automatic watering system that turns on when the soil gets dry
• Filtering dirty water so that it is clean and usable

Tracey Eagle, Science teacher & STEM Future Leaders facilitator 

“I enjoyed going into the city spending the day at RMIT, and it was good to use the skills I learnt to teach the yr 7 and 8’s about sustainability.”

Year 9 STEM Leader

‘It was amazing to see the growth of the students from Gisborne, seeing them in the leadership training at RMIT University, to watching them lead their own STEM workshops on sustainable technology. They brought so much energy, expertise and exuberance to the session, they had the year 7 and 8’s engaged in the activities!’

Tara Graves, RMIT Diversity in STEM Outreach Coordinator