Teaching & Learning Page

Spotlight on Teaching and Learning- The Surfside STEAM Lab

STEAM education is a curriculum approach where the learning areas of Science, Technologies (including Digital), Engineering, Arts and Mathematics are integrated. Rather than these subjects being taught in isolation from one another, STEAM education aims to bring these learning areas together. This approach also allows skills such as critical and creative thinking, collaboration and communication in a rich and authentic manner. 

Surfside Primary School is extremely lucky to be one of the few primary schools to have a laboratory dedicated to STEAM. We have a timetable to ensure that all year levels have on opportunity to visit the STEAM lab, participating in experiments such as designing and investigating marble run obstacles, digital technology & coding, experiments in simple machines and both chemical and physical sciences. The students have made hypotheses’ and designed, observed and tested results. The Swiftie Club has even visited the STEAM room to design and create clay pendant necklaces. 

Our Foundation students designed and created some Olympic torches!

 In Term 2, our Year 1 students had an incursion with ‘Supreme Chemical Reactions’ where they explored the chemical properties of matter, the physical properties of materials and how they are modified for our everyday use.

Our Year 4’s have been participating in experiments on forces and simple machines and the Year 6’s collaboratively designed and created a marble run obstacle.

In Digital Art with Mrs O’Toole, the Grade 5’s have been having fun exploring photography with their iPads, focusing on the history of photography, activating a creative eye, composition, rule of thirds, high and low angles, focus points, macro photography, forced perspective and motion photography.