Aboriginal Learners' STEM Congress

Our Aboriginal Secondary Transition Officer Lily McNamara and Wellbeing Leader Lucinda Yates took Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island students Harper, Kase, Skyla and Daniel to the Aboriginal Learners' STEM Congress on Thursday 18 and Friday 19 August.

Students got to experience some incredible Open to Country performances and learn from some well known Aboriginal STEM achievers through their keynote speeches. The congress begun with a walk to Adelaide University, and students spent some time in the Engineering Lab, learning about Space Rovers, doing some chemical experiments with glass and building a bridge to program a droid out of a crater with supplies. While day 1 ended wet, the Friday morning begun quite sunny and bright. On the second day of the Congress, students worked with Ecological Plant Systems; mixed some herbal remedies, weaved bracelets and decorated clap sticks which they were able to take home (apologies if these make it home!). You'll see that students got 4 white dots above and below their eyebrows- this is a symbol that they are in a journey to learn about their culture. To end the two days, students underwent a VR building experience and learnt about First Nations Architecture. When asked about their time, students reflected on how stressful their crater experience was; the love of experimenting and trailing new methods to achieve their goal, and how they loved learning about the incredible journeys of the people they spoke to; they reflected on their future pathways and opportunities they can take up in years to come and they reflected on the resources we've seen and what we can do in our school to achieve this. Upon returning to school, they look forward to challenging their teachers and working to further embed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island culture further into our curriculum.