Students at Wellington Public School have gained a better understanding of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) thanks to a recent tour to the town by engineers.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
As well as visiting Wellington earlier this week, the engineers also visited Coonamble, Gilgandra, Trangie, Narromine and Dubbo schools.
The STEM workshops were made possible thanks to 25-year-old mechatronic engineering graduate, Jacky Cai.
Jacky, is part of the Engineering Graduate program of Komatsu Australia and secured a grant from the company to talk-up STEM in the regional NSW schools.
The workshops not only introduced the young students to STEM, but showed them the power of it.
"Not just as a career option but actual ways you can use it to solve social, environmental issues," Jacky said.
One of the topics the engineers covered was the renewable energy model, such as wind farms.
"Obviously there's a big environmental issue now about climate change, pollution and out here in Wellington they have wind farms so the students would have seen a lot of them around," he said.
"But what we did... was actually teach them a bit about the engineering principals behind the wind turbines and once we taught the students about the angle of the blades and how they need to be designed, we let them do a hands on activity where they actually built and tested their own."
Jacky said it was important to get out to regional schools because they are much less exposed to STEM than their city counterparts.
"I myself am from a regional area and I didn't discover engineering until I was in high school and when I did I knew it was my passion," he said.
"The idea is to expose kids at a younger age to engineering but also to humanitarian engineering and the principles behind that."
Jacky said the schools they are visiting have a large Indigenous community and they wanted the workshops to coincide with Reconciliation to expose regional and Indigneous students to engineering.
"We wanted to redefine the idea that Indigenous students succeeding in STEM fields was an exception rather than an expectation, so we wanted to redefine that and bring more opportunities, more exposure to engineering," he said.
Jacky said overall he just wants the students to be excited about learning.
"A lot of this is learning the principles, learning how things work and putting it into practice. The biggest takeaway if any is excited about learning," he said.
ALSO MAKING NEWS: Check out what's on in Wellington and surrounds this weekend
He and a team of colleagues visited the schools as part of a School Outreach Program conducted by the Engineers Without Borders Australia organisation.
Jacky applied for the funding through Komatsu's Live Your Dream program, devised to assist its employees to achieve personal goals to help communities.
He thanked Komatsu for giving him the opportunity to be able to go out to the towns and give back to communities.
Jacky received $10,000 to fund his part of EWB's outreach trip, focusing especially on the role which can be played in future STEM development by members of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community.
Taylor Jurd
Hi, my name is Taylor Jurd. I am a journalist with Australian Community Media, I write for the Western Magazine and Wellington Times.
Hi, my name is Taylor Jurd. I am a journalist with Australian Community Media, I write for the Western Magazine and Wellington Times.
