Getting excited about science

To positively influence declining national participation rates, new curriculum-level initiatives based on a highly relevant context are needed and ultimately should be made available to all secondary schools in Australia.

To address the issues of relevance, ATSE has initiated a novel, curriculum-based secondary school science and technology education program known by the acronym STELR, standing for Science and Technology Education Leveraging Relevance.

The first challenge for the STELR program is the issue of relevance. It is obvious that there are numerous science and technology issues that garner substantial press coverage, including genetic modification, nanotechnology, cancer therapies, stem cells and human genetics. But the media coverage of none of these is as extensive as the coverage of climate change. Further, climate change is a topic that students care about. A survey last year by the Australian Childhood Foundation found that 52 per cent of children were worried about not having enough water in the future and 44 per cent were worried about the impending impact of climate change.

A high-impact means to reduce the human contribution to climate change is to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by the use of renewable energy. Practical classes based on wind turbines and solar panels to create electricity, and based on the conversion of vegetable oils and sugars to biodiesel and bioethanol, will be combined with inquiry-based learning methods to stimulate students’ interest in physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics.

STELR is at a fledgling stage. Proof of concept programs are running at the moment in four Victorian schools for year 10 and it is planned, if successful, to broaden the reach into as many schools as possible in all states.

There are so many competing choices for students when they select their subjects, and so many high-tech products such as iPods and PlayStations filling their lives, that unless we add a modern, extremely relevant context to secondary school science and technology education there is no reason for the majority of students to choose science subjects.