Empowering Tweed girls to embrace STEM
18 August 2023
Over 2 days, Thursday 10 – Friday 11 August, some of the brightest student across the Tweed put their brains to the test at the Tweed Shire Sustainable Living Centre, as part of the Industry School Partnership Program: Coastal Academy of STEM Excellence.
The program, supported by Tweed Shire Council, aims to encourage more young women to take up STEM subjects at school.
STEM learning relates to the areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
The event saw students from Banora Point, Kingscliff, Mullumbimby and Tweed River High Schools put their critical thinking skills to the test to solve real-world problems faced by Council today. Four groups in total took part in the event - one from each school.
Mark Wiggins, Coastal Academy of STEM Excellence Secondary Project Officer said that students were able to contextualise their learnings in a simulation of what it would be like in a professional environment.
“It’s a fantastic opportunity for inspiring young Tweed STEM students to be involved in looking at real life issues and looking at the innovative ways that they can come up with solutions to these real-world problems” Mark said.
On day one, student groups were presented with environmental issues relevant to Council such as sustainable product procurement, kerbside bin contamination, greenhouse gas emissions and water security, to name a few.
Students were provided with a background to each issue, its relevance to Council and the objectives they would need to deliver to successfully complete their project. Afterwards each group selected the problem they were most interested in - and were given until 2 pm the next day to come up with a solution.
Each group was tasked with pitching their solution to a panel of Council staff from the Water and Wastewater, Sustainability and Environment and Inclusive and Creative Communities units.
Whilst all school teams impressed with their pragmatic thinking, the winning team – from Banora Point Secondary School – blew the panel away with their answer to environmental issues related to the sourcing of granite for memorial headstones – an issue relevant to Council’s three cemeteries and additional memorial parks.
The students were able to answer the objective of finding innovative solutions for memorial headstones that could reduce emissions, strengthen the local economy and stay true to Council’s goal of using recycled materials where possible.
Their solution titled Rest in Recycle focused on the use of a highly durable and recycled plastic that could be used in place of granite for headstones, that could also be produced locally. The team even developed concept prototypes, which they made from plasticine (pictured).
Overall, the team were able to reduce the carbon footprint related to the issue and left the panel impressed with their innovative answer to the complex issue.
Brie Jowett, Councils Water & Waste Operations Manager, said that encouraging women into STEM related studies was something she was passionate about.
“We are proud to support such an important program that aims to bridge the gender gap so commonly seen in STEM industries.” Brie said.
“The world needs more women in STEM, and we are confident that many of the students we saw over the last 2 days will go on to do wonderful things in the realm of science, technology, engineering and maths”.