STEMinist breakfast at Fed Uni

MORE than 60 girls sat down to breakfast at Federation University recently to share and celebrate their enthusiasm for physics last week.

The Girls in Physics event enabled the Year 10 to 12 students to join Ballarat women already on a STEM career path at the table to hear about their experiences.

Stephanie Davison, STEM Outreach Co-ordinator at Fed Uni said the 14 women attending the breakfast as mentors work either as engineers or in information technology in various organisations around Ballarat.

“We hope that the school girls will be inspired [by talking with the mentors] to continue studying physics through the rest of school and into university,” Ms Davison said.

Dr Dianne Ruka, from the ARC Centre of Excellence in Future Low-Energy Electronics Technologies at Monash University, addressed the breakfast on future computing and low-energy electronics.

Ms Davison said Dr Ruka, who grew up in Kyabram, is a great example of the STEM — science, technology, engineering and maths — career possibilities open for girls from rural communities.

Physics is the natural science that studies matter and its motion and behaviour through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force.

Rui Xng, Year 11 student at Ballarat Grammar said physics is useful in her life.

“I want to build a career in maths and I love to know how stuff works” she said.

Jackie Kerr, physics teacher at Beaufort Secondary College, said meeting the women mentors at breakfast is encouraging for the girls.

“In the STEM field it is not necessarily a girl’s intellect that holds her back, it’s we don’t assert ourselves and talk ourselves up,” Ms Kerr said.

“In the scientific community you need to be noticed and have a visible personality to take up the many opportunities available.”

The Ballarat breakfast was one of a series of six across Melbourne and regional Victoria this year.

Dan O’Keeffe VicPhysics Teachers’ Network co-ordinator said the response had been great.

“We are thrilled at the level of interest shown by schools in Ballarat and western Victoria and by the enthusiasm and support shown by the young women working in engineering and ICT who are attending as mentors,” he said.

Physics teacher Steve Kuhn from Ballarat High School said meeting other girls and scientists at the breakfast can be life changing.

“This is often the only chance for the girls to meet scientific women,” he said.