STEM final presentations

It has been a busy week in STEM at Brighton Primary.

Starting with the year 1 students on Tuesday, students presented final solutions to their industry partner. The year 1 students explained their nature playground designs to Aaron from the department of Environment and Water articulating and justifying their design decisions. He was extremely impressed not only with their nature playground designs but also the thought they had put into the materials which would be used and how the playground would enhance Wittunga Botanical Gardens. The students also made sure that they included an indigenous perspective which lent itself to the development of meeting places, aboriginal dot painitng and the indigenous flag with in their playground space.

That same afternoon 2.9 presented their final design solutions to enhance Wittunga Botanical gardens with the introduction of digital interactive display ideas which guide and educate visitors to the gardens. The students were extremely proud of their work as they explained websites, blogs, digital surveys and QR codes all leading Aaron, their partner, to information about key botanical species. They pulled their learning from the digital photography workshop, aboriginal plants with Trent and their learning from months of research together to build a model of exactly what the interactive display would look like and how it worked. Aaron commented on how he had underestimated the students and how they simply blew him away with their ideas as well as their confident presentations.

Wednesday saw the year 6 students present to Del and Brendan from Vermiculture Australia. The students needed to develop solutions to help Vermiculture Australia convince Australian farmers to use natural rather than chemical fertilisers therefore improving the sale of their products. They had a huge range of solutions from changing the laws with persuasive letters written to key ministers to the creation of a new website for the company. The depth of knowledge shown by the students in fertilisers and soil health was outstanding. Both Del and Brendan commented on the students’ attention to detail and product and process understanding. This was a challenging topic but the students rose to that challenge.

Today the foundation students of 3.4 presented their final STEM solutions to Birdlife Australia, Green Adelaide, Holdfast Council, The Seller Door café and the surf lifesaving club. The students were charged with the task to educate the community on the plight of the Hooded Plover. The students developed 4 solutions;

Create more digital signage through our electronic school sign and on our blog
Create books that could be displayed at the local library (1 narrative and 1 information)
Create postcards that local businesses and the surf club could give out
Create coffee cup covers that local cafes could wrap around take out coffees

The guests were astounded at the students ability to present their solutions as well ass the creations themselves.