STEM ideas aim to enrich lives

THE Ballarat Tech School was full of young problem solvers last week as secondary students took part in the Crazy Ideas College’s two-day Social Innovators program.

Small groups of year 8 and 9 students from Mount Clear, Phoenix, Loreto, and St Patrick’s collages were tasked with designing a program, product or service that could improve people’s lives.

Crazy Ideas College’s Zoe Burrows said students needed to engage their science, technology, engineering, and maths skills as they took inspiration from the areas of health and wellbeing, care for the environment, community connectedness or reimagining learning.

“The young people have been developing a prototype of a big idea, with an aim to enrich the lives of their fellow citizens, and then shrinking that down into a ‘smart start’ experiment, where they can trial the idea with less resources, less moving parts, and time,” she said.

“Sixty students have participated this time, and are pitching their ideas to a panel of 13 community partners from a cross-section of organisations including Ballarat Health Services, Headspace, ID Land, and private businesses, including Brink Drinks.”

Throughout their design process, groups explored themes including body image, safe and unsafe consumption of alcohol, and LGBTQIA+ education.

Mount Clear College’s Ellie, Billy and Despina had the idea to develop a fictional cartoon television program called WREN, which would inform children about taboo topics.

“Younger people need inclusive education, and they need education on subjects that people aren’t always willing to teach, like gender expression,” Ellie said.

“The characters are going to be depicted experiencing things, like having their period, and they will go through a magical portal to meet a character that teaches them about the issue.”

Responding to the health and wellbeing prompt, St Pat’s students Lachie, Kayden, Lenny, and Lachy developed their Smart Stubby concept.

“It’s a stubby holder that tracks how much alcohol you’ve consumed, the alcohol percentage, and what the level of liquid is in the bottle to keep people safe,” Kayden said.

The group had an aim to design a product to lessen the risks for people drinking alcohol at parties.

“It could help to lower alcohol-related deaths and injuries,” Lachie said.

The Social Innovators program is free for the schools to take part, with support from Integra, PRD, and the Ballarat Tech School.

Students will have the opportunity to bring their ideas to life as the year progresses, with help from community partners.