STEM Excursion

Sunday, 6 March 2016

5:01 PM

Hi there! So last week 10 Year 9 STEM students went on an excursion to QUT. This excursion was run by the university group GEMS. Their initiative is to educate young women on all areas of engineering at the university. There were about 4 other schools there. First we all started in a presentation room and were given an outline of GEMS and what they do as well as a guest engineer speaker. We were given coloured wristbands that would later determine our groups which impacted our activities.

I was in green group which paired up with yellow group to first do a water filtration exercise. This involved choosing a desk with a country attached to it (Eva, Laura's and mine was Ethiopia). Each country, depending on how developed it was, received a certain amount of 'money' (paper money) and instructions to spend on supplies. Ours, being Ethiopia, was only supplied $20 and very minimal instructions compared to the team with Australia, who was given $1000 to spend on supplies.

Next, for my group, was using Little Bits. Little Bits are small magnetised mechanical pieces that when joined together can make amazing products and do spectacular actions. Again, we worked in small groups and were given a list of task to complete. The last task was to be creative and come up with something yourself, so our group created something that when you walk into your room the fan turns on and you can turn on your light. Two other groups created alarm systems for a house.

The other activity offered was a dinosaur exploration. This involved the students walking around the university's 'Cube' and filling in a booklet about the dinosaurs they saw. This information included their extinction date, height and other various facts about them.

After this activity was lunch. QUT provided us lunch that consisted of a gourmet sandwich (ham, chicken or vegetarian), a muffin (either chocolate or raspberry) and a popper (tropical or apple). These were really good and well needed as after those activities we were very hungry.

So after lunch came the adventure. Each school went to their own engineering 'site' and Brigo's happened to be the XXXX brewery for a tour of their factory. We were provided orange vests and safety glasses as well as ear blockers for one particularly noisy part of the tour. I can imagine for someone who loved beer it would have smelt great, for 14 year old girls, this was not the case.  I can tell you from a firsthand experience, hops DOES NOT smell good. Despite the smell, the tour was greatly beneficial for understanding innovation in companies. Our tour guide explained to us the environmental concerns it has catered for with it water recycler and the recipe and production changes that took place when the company was beginning.

This is what Eva thought of the event: "It was a really enjoyable day. I loved the water filter activity, because it was interesting and difficult. I also enjoyed the lunch, it was free and delicious!" 

Thank You very much Ms Kath and Dr Reid for accompanying us. This was a brilliant experience and one to definitely be remembered.