Sophie Poisel | Innovation Leader K – 6

Year 6 Changemakers

As part of a class project, 6 Year 6 students are taking on the challenge of changing the statistics of women in STEM fields, starting with shaping the minds of Primary students at Emanuel.

After researching and learning about the United Nations Development Goals in 2017, the girls designed a team of 6 superheroes, the STEAMA 6 (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics, Astronomy). Together, these heroes would fight for gender equality in leadership roles in STEAM fields. The students built on this project as part of their WOW time in 2018 and are involved in the Tech Girls are Superheroes competition.

As part of this competition, the students will use Design Thinking to find a problem in their community and develop a solution that involved a business plan, introduces them to app development and connects them with mentors in the field.

Empathise: observe, ask and listen and research

After reading several reports on women in STEM, the girls came across the Chief Scientist’s Report (2016, see – http://www.chiefscientist.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/OCS_Women_in_STEM_datasheet.pdf) which offered some “key steps towards gender equality in STEM”. These included eliminating stereotypes and bias, emphasising real life STEM applications in teaching, rewarding hard work and developing confidence. They also learnt about the importance of role-modelling and building a culture around this. Given this data, the girls were interested to see how young students at Emanuel identify with STEAM fields. One way they have learnt about this is by having Year 3 students ‘draw a scientist’. They analysed this data, a small snapshot that showed a connection to what was happening in the world in STEM professions. It connected to the data in the Chief Scientist’s report.

The girls were also lucky to meet our 2 new mentors, Elizabeth Hannah (Merck Medical Researcher) and Oliver Gordon (Aerospace Engineer), who come to us from the CSIRO STEM Professionals in Schools Program. The girls were able to ask them about their experiences at school, university and work and learn about what inspired them into their fields. Learning from people in the field also helped the girls to further define their problem to solve: We want to see girls empowered and interested to join the STEAMA world when they leave school.

Ideate: develop a range of solutions

The girls are currently working through a number of iterations for educating younger students. They have been developing different wireframe designs for the development of their app which will include elements that inspire and teach younger students about the possibilities of STEAM fields. Possibilities include introducing the superheroes, inspirational people in the field and instructional videos.

They will need to develop their app, test it and pitch it to the competition organisers. We look forward to seeing where this goes!