During the second week of the recent school holidays, two PLHS Year 8 students – Zoe Proude and Reef Borlase – participated in the National Youth Science Forum’s STEM Explorer program. The event, which focussed on exploring careers in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), saw over a hundred students invited from around the state to attend a week-long camp based at Mylor in the Adelaide Hills.
Participating students visited a range of South Australian educational institutions and organisations such as the new Natural Resource Management Water Testing, Cleland Wildlife Park, Flinders University and the University of South Australia. They tried their hands at water quality testing and building their own interactive games, discovered how Olympic torches work and presented a group project to the South Australian Education Minister, Mr John Gardner.
Zoe and Reef also met and engaged with leading scientists, technologists and engineers and learnt about their research, discovering a broad range of new career opportunities along the way.
“It was really great to learn about STEM career opportunities and to meet lots of great people.” Zoe said.
Reef added “It was an inspiring trip; we learnt a lot about STEM.”
Everyone agreed that the camp was a wonderful experience; they recommend that other students follow the National Youth Science Forum so that they may be able to participate in future camps and other great science opportunities.
Zoe and Reef’s participation in this initiative was fully funded as part of our school’s STEM Ambassador program, led by PLHS Science teacher Ms Michaela Webb. Zoe and Reef were selected following an extensive application process.
The STEM Explorer program is a collaborative initiative between the South Australian Department for Education and the National Youth Science Forum. Visit https://www.facebook.com/NYSFoz/ for more information.
