Ms McClymont, Miss Jones, and Mrs Moraes are all so excited to see our bright and bubbly students back for another fun and exciting year of Gen STEM. This year the Gen STEM program welcomes Mrs Sam Ramos to the team. Mrs Ramos will be taking the Year 7s, with Ms McClymont taking the Year 8s, Miss Jones taking the Year 9s, and Mrs Moraes taking the Year 10s. Students in Year 7 and 8 attend two Gen STEM lessons a week, one on Tuesday, during their period 4 timetabled class, and another on Thursday morning from 7:45-8:45am. Students in Year 9 and 10 Gen STEM only attend the 7:45-8:45am class each week.

The contact details for the teachers in the program are as below:
Mrs Ramos – sehol0@eq.edu.au
Ms McClymont – nmccl31@eq.edu.au
Miss Jones – hjone295@eq.edu.au
Mrs Moraes – smora35@eq.edu.au

This year we will continue our unique partnership with the Wonder of Science, where Year 7 students will be partnered one-to-one with an individual PhD mentor from universities all over Australia. Our students in Year 8 will travel to Moreton Bay Environmental Education Centre, where they will act as Citizen Scientists conducting surveys and collecting data aboard the vessel, Inspiration. Year 7 and 8 students will follow the inquiry cycle to investigate a problem in STEM, and generate a solution, presenting this at the Wonder of Science Regional Conference.

Year 7 and 8 students will also design, code and problem-solve in the First Lego League Coomera Regional event, which will be hosted by Foxwell State Secondary College. Our Year 9 students will begin their journey with Horizon Educational, engineering and mathematically designing and racing RC cars. And year 10 students, sponsored by ABB Technologies, will travel to Gladstone to compete in the Horizon Hydrogen Grand Prix, where they will race their designed car featuring the ABB Technologies and Gen STEM logos! We hope to come home with a win, and the opportunity to travel overseas and represent Australia in the International Grand Prix. All students will participate in the annual Up & Atom Gen STEM Fair, where they will present their Term 3 cumulated passion project.

A reminder about the expectations in the Gen STEM program of excellence are below:

Next week, each student will receive a Gen STEM t-shirt, which they are expected to wear to school on Thursdays.

If your child requires extra support with Gen STEM, teachers can make themselves available during lunch times, or before/after school, on a needs basis. WIN time is also available before school in the Learning Hub after 8am, and until 4pm each day.

We have all this, and so many more exciting experiences planned this year. We cannot wait to share them with you. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me via email or phone call. I look forward to a positive year of Gen STEM ahead!

Warm regards,

Nahdia McClymont
Head of Physical World