STUDENTS from Ballarat secondary schools once again came together to brainstorm their innovative ideas.<\/p>\n
They met at Ballarat Tech School last week to take part in the Ballarat Social Innovators Program, led by Crazy Ideas College.<\/p>\n
The free program is aimed at helping young people come up with and pitch new products, programs, and services.<\/p>\n
On Friday afternoon the year 8 students from Loreto, Woodmans Hill Secondary, St Patrick\u2019s, and Phoenix colleges had a chance to put forward their ideas to a panel of assessors.<\/p>\n
Josh Hayes and his group from St Pat\u2019s pitched an app which encourages children to be active and pick up rubbish.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur idea we came up with was a program with a competition called \u2018rubbish run\u2019 where you download the app and it\u2019s designed for school aged children to pick up rubbish while running and gain points towards a leader board,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe person at the top of the leader board at the end of a month or three months would end up getting a prize whether it be sports equipment for their school or go towards some sort of money tab for the school.\u201d<\/p>\n
Loreto\u2019s Lainie Ballinger and some of her friends focused on the theme reimagining learning.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe came up with the question of \u2018how do we really help people who struggle or don\u2019t like school?\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were thinking of a platform where teachers and students can communicate and share ideas on how to create engaging lessons and students can contact a teacher and ask for help with anything they may be struggling with.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe decided that we would try and contact the system Simon and on the teacher\u2019s version they could have a little link they could access where they could share lesson plans and engaging ideas that they have used.\u201d<\/p>\n
Director of Crazy Ideas College, Zoe Burrows, said the program has proven successful and stood the test of time.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know that both the schools have been blown away by how much their young people have stepped up and we\u2019ve had great commitment from young people,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cEssentially every school in Ballarat wants to be involved and it\u2019s just how we do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yet, the program is not all theoretical, with some ideas coming in the past pitching days successfully implemented in Ballarat.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had paper seed bags which have launched in Ryan’s IGA and they\u2019re a compostable fruit and vegetable bag that\u2019s about removing single use plastic,\u201d said Ms Burrows.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe bag has seeds in it, you plant it, and it grows into fruits a veggies.<\/p>\n