St Edmund’s provides students with lots of opportunities to develop their knowledge and understanding of Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics in their classes as well as through our co-curricular offerings. We have record numbers of students participating in our STEAM co-curricular program on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons. Students participating in the program have opportunities to further develop their problem solving skills by engaging in a range of exciting and innovative projects. One group of students has successfully built a 3D printer, while another group is building an electric bike with the objective of entering in the EV Prize Competition which will be held later this year. Other activities include building drones, preparing entries for the RoboCupJunior Robotics competition, learning 3D modelling and digital editing as well as working in teams to create games for the Australian STEM Video Game Challenge.
Students studying Digital Technologies as part of the curriculum have focused on developing their programming skills using a variety of platforms. One class of senior students is using Arduinos and Raspberry Pis to devise solutions for a range of real world problems while the other class is working with advanced web design functionality to create websites for specific audiences and purposes. Year 10 students are using Arduinos to create robots while Year 9 students are developing their game design skills and understanding of cyber security issues. Year 7 students are learning how to program Microbits and how to create and program worlds in Kodu. Students in Years 4-6 are working through a structured program designed to develop their understanding of basic programming principles as well as how to efficiently and effectively use ICT to communicate, collaborate and create.
Margaret Maher (Director Innovation and ICT)