From The Junior Secondary Head of Department With Gerard Clark Term 3 Week 10 2022

In week 8, a number of students in year 7 and STEM Squad took part in the Questacon National Schools Tour.

Questacon (The National Science and Technology Centre) bring STEM learning opportunities to schools across Australia each year and this year’s incursion was a fantastic experience for our students. In the hands-on session, students explored the concept of rollercoaster design and the process of innovation and testing. Student worked in pairs to problem solve, plan, build and present their designs. The students showed amazing creativity and had a blast!

Each year, Toolooa take part in the First LEGO League Challenge. This year, we will have two teams of ten students from our STEM Squad competing. Students recently put together all the LEGO components and are now spending their lunch breaks practicing for the challenge. They will be required to demonstrate their coding skills by programming robots to complete a number of obstacles to accumulate points over a timed period. They will also be required to show teamwork and creativity by pitching a solution to a given real-world scenario. This year the challenge is called SUPERPOWER! and students' challenges are all built and based around the way we can use renewable energy in the future We wish these students all the best and look forward to hearing about their success early in Term 4.