Nick Biddle is the STEM coordinator at Yass High School, located in the Southern Tablelands of NSW. He recently emailed the ME Program to let us know about the impact that iSTEM is having on his students.
iSTEM ‘has quickly become a flagship subject for the school and enrolment for into the class for 2018 has doubled.’ said Nick Biddle
The school is a great example of how to implement iSTEM correctly and includes interactions with the local industry. After completing their iSTEM Mechatronics Unit students demonstrated their prototypes for local industry professionals.
Yass High School also worked with ME Progam partner Cuberider where students designed experiments that were uploaded to the International Space Station on a Elon Musks SpaceX rocket which launched in August. The school utilised the Design for Space unit which was developed in partnership with Cuberiders CEO Solange Cunin. See Media report from the YASS Tribute http://www.yasstribune.com.au/story/4839196/yass-high-has-lift-off/
Utilising the Motion Unit from the iSTEM course Yass are now embarking on drone construction and flight training which will allow the Yass students to build and fly their own drone and obtain a remote pilots licence in the process.
Most of Yass High Schools iSTEM units of work are avialable on the PurpleZeus for NSW DoE schools Website http://www.purplezeus.com/istem.html