STEM at Burnie

It has been an exciting Term 2 for STEM at Burnie! 

Recently we formed our First LEGO League Challenge competition team at the Burnie campus. A number of students from Years 4-6 participated in a training day, held for interested schools at the University of Tasmania campus in Burnie. The students were introduced to the different aspects of being in a LEGO League team and what is required to prepare for and enter an actual competition. A team is preparing for the official competition next Term. 

In STEM classes, the Prep classes are learning about giving sequential instructions to robots (programming) and having fun using Bee Bots and programming them to move around obstacles and mazes.  

The 1/2 classes are enjoying opportunities to use the Scratch Junior app on iPads, to learn about block coding. The students are planning and designing backgrounds and characters in motion, to create stories on a particular topic. They love being creative and expressive in using their own ideas. 

Students in the Year 3/4 and Year 5/6 classes have been focusing on the engineering process to develop solutions to a problem and working to make further improvements on initial solutions. The Year 3/4 classes looked to create and improve paper plane launchers and the Year 5/6’s are creating bridges made of paper, using their understanding of strong shapes to influence their designs. 

In STEM we talk about mistakes being the first step to success; we learn through testing our ideas, sharing knowledge and working together. It is always exciting to observe students persevering and experiencing success in overcoming a challenge and solving problems.  

Andrew Cowen

Primary STEM & PE Teacher