Maitland Grossmann High School students excel at STEM challenge day

Organised by the Hunter Academy of STEM Excellence, the event saw the Year 8 High Potential Gifted Education (HPGE) class complete two design challenges.

The first challenge saw the students design and create a bionic hand which could pick up small objects, which many groups were successful with.

Making the hand out of straws and string, the students even tied the challenge into their english studies by signing the first ten numbers of Australian sign language (Auslan).

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The second challenge was a bit more open ended, where the students had to design and create a solution to ease the effects of long term space travel on the human body.

Event organiser and STEM project officer at Hunter Academy of STEM Excellence, Aaron McGowan, said he was really impressed with the designs the students came up with.

"Some really focused in on exercise machines to help with muscle or bone loss due to fatigue of not having gravity, some went down the avenue of different well-being options, creating resources to help astronauts who are feeling homesick," Mr McGowan said.

"Our winning team created a model of a water filtration device that they explained really well, and talked about how it was important because water is a finite resource in space, and how it would recycle from the air and from their waste to come through with clean water."

Students Erica, Emily, Chloe and Rochelle said they enjoyed the hands on nature of the activity, and found working in a team helped them learn to communicate effectively with each other.

"We worked together and fuelled each other's ideas," they said.

The students also listened to a presentation from Professor Paul Dastoor from the University of Newcastle, who talked about the scientific research his team is conducting, including flexible solar, diabetes testing and new technologies for artificial limbs.

The STEM challenge was designed to tie into the student's current science, maths and english topics, while improving their problem solving capabilities, creative thinking and teamwork.

Mr McGowan said there were lots of smiling faces, and the students who were more creative or preferred to work with their hands enjoyed it the most.

This was the first full day event the Hunter Academy of STEM Excellence has put on at a school, and Mr McGowan said it went really well.

"I definitely want to put the opportunity out there to do it at other schools," he said.

The Hunter Academy of STEM Excellence works with local Maitland High Schools to help improve STEM programs and up-skill teachers.

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