STEM 4 Innovation
We’ve set our challenge as: “How do we emerge from COVID-19 impacts with an education system that is responsive, adaptable, contributory, community-linked, and future-focussed?”
This program was borne out of the imagination of Western Australian educators wanting to generate authentic learning experiences for WA school students to apply STEM-inspired, curriculum-linked, design-thinking processes to solving real-world problems relating to the immediate and future impacts of COVID-19 and other community-related needs in Western Australia.
Inspired by the WA State Government and Public Sector iThink initiative we have translated their call for the combined skills and capabilities of the Western Australian community to bring WA school students to address the challenges identified.
“STEM makes sure you do the project right, HASS makes sure you do the right project.“
On this website, we’ll present a range of challenges that can become the basis of a rich real-world learning experience. You’ll be invited to consider problems you think you can solve by bringing your combined knowledge, skill, and connections together in a meaningful way.
You’ll be able to post your solutions to the site and your work will be assessed by teams of teachers, academics, industry experts, community representatives, and others.
Learn more about Challenge-based Learning.
“I have a dream that has not yet been realized; I would like students, not to learn what their teachers teach them, but to be people who solve problems in the outside world that their teachers bring to them. The job of school principals should be to go out into the real world and find tasks. I dream of schools working with real tasks, rather than learning about things in class … This is actually a radical way of learning, I want students to be citizens of the world. The Commission Model brings Mantle of the Expert to the real world.”
https://www.mantlenetwork.com/commission-model
– Dorothy Heathcote
Helping the leaders of tomorrow learn to succeed today.
This program is designed to support Western Australian students via their teachers, schools, and collaborative interaction with industry, government, and the broader community to showcase their innovation and creative potential in addressing some of the most challenging problems facing our society, locally, nationally, and internationally.
The project began as we started to navigate through the impacts of COVID-19 and now, continues to look forward to a more sustainable and connected future.
We are confident that our team’s unique insights, experience, and creative learning opportunities will absolutely be an asset, not only to students but also to teachers, schools, and the way we think about and engage with meaningful learning in real-world contexts.
Look for STEM in your subject, not for your subject in STEM
Tim Rowberry
Please be clear that when we speak of STEM we are talking about an integrated program that involves all learning areas in a school and values the connections between disciplines.
CO-FOUNDERS
Kim Flintoff Peter Carnley ACS
Tim Rowberry John Curtin College of the Arts
STUDENT VOICE
Kai Lovel
Gethin Thomas
ADVISORS
Professor Fiona Wood