On Monday the Year 6 students were invited to participate in a STEM session that was organised by Pimpama State Secondary College’s STEM teacher Nahdia Graham, in conjunction with Griffith University. The two focus groups were based around the design projects of:

• Prosthetic legs and
• Water filtration.

Prosthetics:   

Aim - In small groups, choose different materials (rope, rubber bands, sticky tape and a cardboard tube) to help design a prosthetic leg for one team member. It must be able to stay in place and withstand weight.

Outcome- Our students had a lot of fun designing these prosthetic legs and showed a lot of teamwork when discussing different options in the making process. It was a difficult task but we had some successes.

Water Filtration

Aim - Using the materials (sponges, small pebbles, small rocks, sand, chux cloth), place them strategically in a funnel where dirty water enters and is filtered through the materials to clean and filter the water.

Outcome - Only a few groups organised their combination of the three materials right to filter the dirty water into clean water. The students were amazed at how this works and started thinking globally about how many countries water filtration could help.

It was a very engaging session which tied in nicely to the Year 6’s Ministers Climate Challenge that they are working on in their Digital Design class and also a great introduction to Semester 2’s HASS unit on Global Goals.