St Mary’s College Win Griffith University STEM Cup
St Mary’s College have been named the STEM state champions after winning Griffith University’s first ever STEM Cup Super-Final in November 2019.
Congratulations to the students who worked incredibly hard to take out the prize after heated rounds of competition between 200 teams from 71 South East Queensland schools.
Griffith Sciences’ STEM Cup was a long-running competition for school students in years 5 to 8, where they competed in weekly challenges each term to solve science, technology, engineering and mathematics problems.
The top three teams from each age division in the regional grand finals held in terms 2 and 3 of 2019, competed in the STEM Cup Super-Final at Griffith’s Nathan Campus, where the State Minister for Environment the Hon. Leanne Enoch MP presented the awards to the winners.
Prior to the awards presentation, the grand final teams competed in STEM challenges including designing an automated farm gate and drone rock collecting.
The St Mary’s College team ‘Joergen Smoergen’ performed exceptionally well, taking out first place and beating the St Joseph’s College Gregory Terrace team by more than 200 points.
STEM is about engaging kids’ passion for science, technology, engineering and mathematics by utilising scenarios, taking what they learn at school and putting it into real-life scenarios.
St Mary’s College Principal Michael Newman says the competition encourages the boys to further develop their collaboration, teamwork, higher order thinking and problem-solving skills by exploring challenges for themselves and finding creative ways to identify and solve problems.
“We look forward to another successful year for the students at St Mary’s College in the field of STEM,” he said.
St Mary’s College is always looking for opportunities to integrate STEM learning. In June 2020, they will host the Youth, Entrepreneurs and STEM Conference.
Mr Newman further commented that the goal of this conference is to inspire, empower and ignite students and their teachers to be innovative, creative and entrepreneurial using the thinking involved in STEM.
