Year 8 Curiosity Week
This week, our Year 8 students have been involved in a STEM immersion program called CURIOSITY WEEK.
What is STEM, you may ask?
STEM is an approach to learning and development that integrates the areas of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The global economy is changing; current jobs are disappearing due to automation and new jobs are emerging every day as a result of technological advances. The continual advances in technology are changing the way students learn, connect, and interact every day. Skills developed by students through STEM provide them with the foundation to succeed at school and beyond. Year 8 staff are also collaborating to provide a unique experience for our students that encompasses knowledge sharing across subject domains.
What are we doing?
We have chosen a Project-Based Learning Approach towards completing this program. This is a teaching method in which students gain knowledge and skills by working for an extended period of time to investigate and respond to an authentic, engaging, and complex question, problem, or challenge. It is also the way many adults approach their own workplace in terms of working within teams to produce a final product or outcome.
Your child has enrolled in a science domain chosen from the following areas: Psychology, Physics, Environment, Biology, and Chemistry We have created teams within each interest group to work on a problem they are curious about. These teams are not friendship based, which is also throwing up some challenges for our 14-year-olds, but is very much like the working environment they will be placed in next year or during their future workplace. Their mission is to conduct experiments and wider research on a chosen problem or global issue. The final product is based around presenting their work via a video reproduction based around ‘The Curiosity Show’. This was an Australian educational children’s television show produced from 1972 to 1990 and hosted by Rob Morrison and Deane Hutton; some of you may have watched this show on a weeknight after school. It has made a recent resurgence with today’s youth and episodes can now be found via their own YouTube Channel.
So far students have come up with some creative and curious concepts to research. The research and presentation skills needed for this project are currently being covered as part of the Year 8 Encounter program. We are also providing student tutorials on using green screen technology, sound and light techniques and video editing. The program run for five days (finishing Friday 1 November) and culminates in a parent presentation at the Middle School Campus on Thursday 7 November from 2:15 pm to 3:20 pm.
Through STEM, students develop key 21st Century skills, including:
- problem solving;
- creativity;
- critical analysis;
- teamwork;
- independent thinking;
- initiative;
- communication; and
- digital literacy.
We look forward to sharing updates with you after the completion of the week; well done to all the staff involved and to all the Year 8 students for really embracing Curiosity Week.
