SCS STEM MAD 

bane2024 SCS STEM MAD Competition Update....

FIRST PLACE! Congratulations to our OLF participants!

11 SLEEPS TO GO until our STEM MAD team head up to Brisbane for the STEM MAD National Competition.

We are so proud of our students that will be competing, we wish them the best of luck.

Project Name: Road Safe Koalas

Students: Alessia, Avery, Archie & Max

Email to our STEM Students recieved from        Lone Pine Koala Santuary in QLD

Avery S emailed the Lone Pine Koala Santuary and they were so impressed with our design and here is their response:

Congratulations to you and your science team, that is a fantastic accomplishment and you should be so proud!

We LOVE your concept around utilising GPS technology to activate road signs and minimise koala road deaths. As koalas face increasing habitat fragmentation, road deaths are unfortunately becoming a bigger and bigger threat. We have done lots of research collaborations here at Lone Pine working with different council and University groups on similar projects. Most recently we worked on a project that helped train AI equipped trail cameras to recognise a koala (as opposed to a possum or fox), and even teach it to recognise individual koalas. These cameras were then used to monitor wildlife crossings (tunnels under highways and bridges going over the top) to prove that koalas do, in fact, use these crossings.

Maybe someday we can do a research collaboration with you and your team when you are undoubtedly changing the world at Uni!

We would love to support your message at the competition. Whilst we can’t send you a koala haha, we would be happy to send through some brochures to pass out, as well as a special Koala Hugger Pin for each of your team to wear.

I have also attached a digital resource that you are welcome to use. It is a Backyard Koala Friendly Checklist that was developed by the team at Social Marketing @Griffith University as part of their koala threat mitigation campaign. Feel free to print these out and hand them around, they have some great tips for how we can all help protect koalas.

I look forward to hearing back from you, and congrats again!

Kind regards,

Education & Experiences Manager

Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary QLD

W: www.lonepinekoalasanctuary.com

PROJECT:

Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Primary, Caringbah: The students designed and carefully prototyped a GPS tracking system that will alert drivers when koalas are close to the road, helping to avoid road collisions with these endangered animals.

Watch a snippet of their video here:

Miss Chloe Tozer | Yr 5 Teacher 

STEM Co-ordinator