SHOWCASE
News from our schools
Judges go wild for animal design
St Michael’s Catholic Primary School Belfield student Marcus Joukhador has won Taronga Zoo Sydney’s STEM Enrichment Design competition. The competition required students to research, design and build an animal enrichment object for the zoo’s pygmy marmoset enclosure. Taronga Zoo keepers, behavioural scientists and educators were among the judging panel who selected the Year 2 student’s design as the best of 70 entries submitted. Excitingly, Marcus, his family and his entire class have now been invited to Taronga Zoo where they will get to see his design placed into the enclosure. Marcus was hands-on during the construction process. ...
Tournament of Minds: St Agnes’ top honours
St Agnes’ Catholic Primary School Matraville students have achieved honours in their first foray into problem-solving competition Tournament of Minds. In the tournament’s NSW regional final, two teams of St Agnes’ students maintained creativity and focus in two of the four six-week challenges: STEM and the Arts. The participating students were in Years 4, 5 and 6. ABOUT THE COMPETITION Each challenge asks teams to think flexibly and to create and collaborate without input from their teachers, parents or peers to solve a problem. In light of COVID-19, they presented their work via two videos after working remotely...
Building a greener future
Students at St Mary - St Joseph Catholic Primary School Maroubra are doing their part to make the world a better place after completing a self-guided project that saw them design and build a series of sustainable garden beds for their school. Following a planning process, which involved using a CAD (Computer-aided design) program and a 3D printer, students used old and unwanted timber sourced from local businesses to make the garden beds. The program was first born out of a brainstorming session among the students who then engaged in inquiry-based learning to help bring their concepts to life....
