STEM Professionals in Schools

2022 marks the 15th Anniversary of the CSIRO STEM Professionals in Schools Program. It is Australia’s largest national skilled volunteering program creating ongoing and flexible partnerships between teachers and STEM professionals to enhance STEM education and engage students in real-world STEM. 

St Catherine’s School was one of the founding schools involved in this program when it commenced in 2007. Throughout our involvement we have collaborated with Dr Stephen Hawkins from Monash University investigating Nanotechnology, Dr Loren Burns from Melbourne University, who educated students in Astronomy and this year, Professor Paul Wood AO presented to our students.  

Professor Wood has been a full-time research scientist throughout his career, from Melbourne University to CSIRO, CSL and Pfizer. He has received numerous awards including the CSIRO Medal and Clunies Ross Award. He now helps academic groups work with industry. This work was recognised with the prestigious UTS Eureka Prize for Outstanding Mentor of Young Researchers 2022. Professor Wood was nominated for his vision and leadership in establishing the Industry Mentoring Network in STEM (IMNIS) Program. 

As part of the STEM Professionals Program, Professor Wood and I devised a program entitled ‘Assessing the Credibility of Scientific Evidence.’ Students were given a short synopsis of a scientific issue with a question. Their task was to decide if the information was correct and then answer the question.  

In the process of investigating correct scientific information, the students were required to evaluate the sources utilised to substantiate their claims. Students presented their findings in a group where each student presented one PowerPoint slide and spoke for one minute. Professor Wood informed the students that if a PhD student can present six years of research in six minutes, then they could do it too. Students accepted the challenge and impressed Professor Wood with their presentations and analysis.  

The Presentation Day of the Program commenced with Professor Wood sharing his awards with the students and outlining the research associated with each award. This was followed by student questions and discussion. Students then presented their projects and Professor Wood provided feedback on their presentations and findings.

Being a Founder of the Program, I was invited to present it to a workshop of teachers. The response was extremely positive with several schools taking on the Program.

 

Ms Vanessa Jackson-McRae

Head of Science

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