Aidan Curtis
GRANT High School and Mount Gambier High School are getting ready to go head-to-head in an annual competition that encourages students to engage in STEM subjects.
The STEM Innovation Experience (STEMIE), run by the University of South Australia, gets schools across the state to take each other on in a range of projects under a central theme.
This year’s theme is “Revolutionary Resources”, with each STEM subject – science, technology, engineering and maths – needing different approaches for success.
Both GHS and MGHS will be taking part in the Limestone Coast regional showcase early in term four, competing against schools from Victoria for the first time for a spot in the state finals.
GHS science and STEM promotion coordinator Brianna Lush said this is the first time she has run the school’s STEMIE team, but she is backing in the work her students have done.
“I think they’re on the right track,” she said.
“Definitely heading in the right direction, they’ve got a good understanding of what their project is and what they have been doing and what they’ve been working towards.”
Ms Lush said Covid and timetabling have been problematic over the course of the year, but the students have worked well to band together and put themselves in a good position.
She also said the competition gets students thinking in different ways and engages them in problem solving.
“We’ve had a couple of groups that have gone completely up the wrong track for a week or two, and then read something and realised they were supposed to be going in another direction,” she said.
“But the students that have been involved in those situations have been really good at redirecting their thinking and bringing it all back together.
“[STEMIE] exposes them to different ways of thinking and it’s great for the region that we’ve got a broader catchment of schools involved.”
MGHS maths coordinator Karen Henman said the school has performed quite well over the last six years and wants to keep its reputation for success in the regional showcase intact.
“It’s always hotly contested,” Ms Henman said.
“It’s a little bit different this year because we’ve got Victorian schools coming across as well, so there’s a little bit of extra pressure.”
Ms Henman said her students have been stressing a little bit lately with assignment deadlines piling up at the pointy end of their STEMIE preparation, but it will pay off in the end.
“At the moment, it seems like hard work,” she said.
“When they go to present it and they look at what other schools have done as well, they see all their hard work come to fruition and they get that reward.”
MGHS Year 11 student Zeb has been working on the technology and engineering projects within the school’s STEMIE team, which he thinks will be very helpful later in life.
“I was already pretty set on what I want to do, I want to be an electrical engineer,” he said.
He said it is his first year taking part in STEMIE, but he thinks the school is tracking pretty well for a good performance in the regional showcase.
