STEM LEARNING AT SVCC
Primary aged students are growing up in an age where science and technology increasingly transforms the way we live our daily lives. Predictions of artificial intelligence changing future career possibilities and the largely unknown effects, both positive and negative, of some current and future technologies on human health and well-being leave us questioning how to best prepare our students.
We know that thinking skills, how to learn, unlearn and re-learn are transferable lifelong skills that enable individuals to adapt to changing environments. STEM education here at Southern Vales seeks to develop curiosity and confidence to learn in this broad, integrated subject area and utilises hands-on activities to stimulate engagement. Designing, building, playing with things, testing, trying again to improve things, are important aspects of our STEM curriculum.
Students have opportunities to discover and apply coding principles with robotics, microbits, sensors and applications. They use everyday materials to design solutions to real life problems. One class is currently designing and making a drink bottle holder that attaches to their desk to prevent people tripping over their bottles. It’s all meant to be fun, interesting and stimulating. Students pursuing answers and solutions, guided by teachers who can support their exploration with scaffolds and materials. STEM education is a confidence building quest, rooted in curiosity which naturally builds integrated knowledge and skills.
Andrew Langmaid, Primary STEM Coordinator
PRIMARY STEM NEWS
Solar Cars: The students in Year 4 have begun harnessing the power of the sun to make solar cars using Lego and solar panels. After playing around with the materials initially, students soon discovered that weight and friction needed to be reduced if their car was to win the race. Not to mention the need for a bright sunny day. This has led to discussions about the viability of solar energy as a renewable energy source, and how battery technology is becoming such a key component of our energy future.
Students also have discovered the cyclical nature of the design process as they test their prototypes, make changes and retest. This fun activity has helped students to consider important issues for the future and honed their communication, collaboration, and design skills.
STEM Inventors Lunch Time Club: This year, the Coding Club has transformed into a broader STEM Inventors Club, where coding is only a part of the larger creative process that students experience. The club is a place where students can have fun exploring problems, engage collaboratively with the design process and make practical solutions.
So far this year we’ve played a game exploring how inventors empathize with people’s problems to create useful inventions. Next, we made confetti launchers using small lengths of wood, rubber bands, tape and string. Watch this space!
SECONDARY STEM: Digital Technoglogy
At Southern Vales we have many exciting Digital Technology projects for Secondary students. Our focus has been in two main areas, Web Design with associated back-end development and Microcontroller Programming (using Arduino).
Web Design: This Semester marked the commencement of a new school-wide project where students will build an online exhibition site for each subject across the year levels. These sites will allow students to upload work they are proud of with a comment and details. The students from each year level are responsible of designing the look and style of these pages, giving a real world use for their creative endeavours.
The Senior students will have the added responsibility of constructing back-end database development of their sites. This allows a greater depth of understanding usually reserved for university projects.
Programming Microcontrollers: This year the Senior Secondary students are building a vegetable garden monitoring and watering system. This system will use sensors to record statistical data to a student made database. These sensors include: soil moisture, temperature, light levels and even motion. Two methods to view this data have been considered; a website containing appropriate graphs; and a specially constructed handheld touch screen that can be carried around the garden. These methods will also provide the ability to manually control the watering if desired.
The Year 8 students created specially constructed websites. These sites are already accessible when connected to the school Wi-Fi. The students built the sites whilst considering the Essential Question:
How can web design be used to create interest and engagement with viewers whilst providing an important service?”
Andrew Leane, Secondary STEM Coordinator
Olive Harvest
In Week 3, Year 6-9 Aldinga students and the Year 8 Morphett Vale students, helped to pick the olives at our Aldinga campus. Thank you to our maintenance staff Jenny, Malcolm and Neville who assisted them and teachers who supervised the occasion. The students were treated to a BBQ lunch to thank them for their efforts.
The olives will be pressed for our SVCC olive oil. The new batch of olive oil will be available for sale in the Front Offices once it is ready. The proceeds of our Olive oil go towards our community vegetable gardens used for Home Ec and Hospitality students and Primary classes. Special guest speakers to our College are often given a bottle of Olive Oil as a thank you gift.
SVCC at Debating SA
Congratulations to all our teams who have now competed in Round 1 of the Debating SA season. We are so proud of all the hard work and dedication from both our students and coaches, and it looks like we are in for a great season!
Round 1, Morphett Vale Teams: Year 10 - WIN; Year 9 - WIN; Year 6/7 - WIN; Year 5 - WIN
Round 1, Aldinga Teams: Year 6/7 - Loss (2 points the difference); Year 5 - WIN
Rebecca Varnas, Extended Learning Coach
Gifted & Talented Children's Association of SA - Saturday Club Term 2
Politics is more difficult than physics." – Albert Einstein.
The theme for the term is looking to educate about political systems for the Intermediate and Seniors and maths fun for the juniors. For further information telephone 0422 246 476. Please note - events are open to all students. You do not need a gifted assessment to attend.
Junior (5-8 years)
Session 1 - 8 May 2021 Cryptology 1 - Revisit basic Codes and Historical: Cryptology : A quick revisit of how to use a code wheel and basic historical ciphers (2019 session revision ). We will then look at some historical physical code methods, then transposition ciphers which require a frame and a Vigenere Cipher which requires a key word.
Session 2 – 22 May 2021 Cryptology 2 - Code Breaking and Analysis: Code Breaking - Previously the junior class has looked at how we use language frequency analysis to break codes in English. This time we will look at how languages vary and how this may influence our ability to break a code
Session 3 - 5 Jun 2021 - Maths of the Run: Maths on the Run. During this session the kids will be taken through a series of games and thought-provoking exercises that are designed to be used in daily life with family and friends
Session 4 - 19 Jun 2021 - Primes in Your World: Prime Time. Let's look at more than what is a prime but primes in nature and primes in our daily life. We will look at how we find mega Primes and what we can do with them. Large primes will for this generation underpin secure banking and currencies like bitcoin.
Intermediate (8-12 yrs) and Senior (12-17yrs)
Session 1 (8 May 2021): What is Government Anyway? The presenters using their secondary school politics and civics knowledge will explore what a government is and then as a group come up with the perfect one. (Such a simple task, right!!)
Session 2 (22 May 2021): Lording it Up: This week we learn about Feudalism and Monarchy by creating our own mini feudal society. After some game play the group will explore how the whole system worked. We'll ask questions of power, fairness and equity.
Session 3 ( 5 Jun 2021): Power to the People: This week the groups will view a video which documents an experiment surrounding the concepts of Socialism and Capitalism. The groups will then deep dive into these two ideas which are arguably significant elements of some modern societies.
Session 4: Who gets to Choose?This week the groups will play a game based on the comparative ideas of Democracy and Autocracy. After the fun we'll discuss our thoughts and feelings about each these types of government.
The Term 2 program is available now for booking and can be viewed at the Eventbrite site.