Year 10 STEM Club Students Prepare for STEM MAD National Showcase

Year 10 STEM Club students with their 'Heat Stressed' display

The Catherine McAuley Year 10 STEM Club Team are continuing their preparations for the STEM MAD (Make a Difference) National Secondary Showcase to be held in Melbourne on Thursday, 9th November.

This event is a celebration of excellence in Catholic education, in which the nation's best primary, secondary and 'Future is STEM' student teams, nominated by their dioceses, showcase their projects.

The Year 10 STEM Club were chosen to represent the Diocese after winning ‘Best Presentation’ at the recent Parramatta Diocese STEM MAD Showcase. The McAuley students have designed an urban green space to replace the current space known as Dobson Green. All the students involved in STEM MAD were asked to look at their own school environments and provide a solution to a particular problem. The Catherine McAuley students chose the topic of ‘heat stress’. The students named their project ‘Heat Stressed’ and named their team ‘STEMinists’.

Two Year 11 students participated in the Parramatta Diocese STEM MAD Showcase through their involvement with School of Now

The students began by looking at a heat map provided to them by Parramatta City Council and were able to identify Dobson Green as the hottest place on the school grounds. “Using the heat map we zoned in on our school and Dobson Green was in bright purple, which is the hottest you can get”, said team member Ann C. “The map showed that this area can be around 30 - 35 degrees Celsius”.

“Dobson Green is very closed in with the EA Building right beside it and Darcy Road on the other side”, clarified team member Annie H. “This means not much air can flow through the area. The road adds a lot of additional heat which only amplifies the issue”, Annie said.

Ann continued, “The astro turf also gets really hot and with the concrete surrounding the area the heat gets boxed in. It cannot escape”.

The students have looked at the heat stress in Dobson Green and developed a solution to the problem

The McAuley Team have come up with a new roof design for Dobson Green to help solve the problem. “The new design is a slanted saw tooth design with one side in a special type of glass called hydrogel and the other side in aluminium. The aluminium will reflect the light and the hydrogel glass will filter out the infrared and heat and instead only let in light rays. This then keeps the area cool”, the McAuley Team explained.

The Year 10 STEM Club students have built a model showing their design which was part of their Parramatta Diocese STEM MAD Display and which they will take to Melbourne for the national showcase. The team also submitted a video pitch this week to the national judging panel with the winners to be announced next week. They are looking forward to going to Melbourne and are very excited that they have been chosen. “To be able to talk to professionals in industry and interact with them, whilst also obtaining feedback on our design which we have been working on for the past year, will be really exciting”, said Ann.

In addition to the Year 10 STEM Club Team project Catherine McAuley had two Year 11 students (Shivali and Luise) participate in the Parramatta Diocese STEM MAD Showcase through their involvement with School of Now. School of Now is an innovative program that uses technology to increase student subject choice. Years 11 and 12 students across different Catholic Education Diocese of Parramatta schools have the opportunity to learn together from an expert teacher with specialist knowledge.