The winning student projects have been announced in the 2020 ‘STEM XR Challenge’, including one that it is cleaning up a local polluted creek.
The XR (Extended Reality) Challenge is a joint initiative between Catholic Education SA and Adelaide-based Lumination, one of Australia’s leading innovators in education technology and immersive IT solutions.
The Challenge aims to develop skills and confidence in extended reality technology to a point where students are using it effectively and creating their own engaging and purposeful Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality (VR/AR) experiences.
Congratulations to the Challenge winners:
The Challenge is designed to teach students the skills they need to thrive in their future careers - from technical skills to critical thinking, problem-solving, creativity, communication and collaboration.
Participating students are encouraged to use design thinking to identify a real-world problem and form practical solutions. Through the process, they develop technical skills including fundamental coding concepts and 3D modelling, and then use these new skills to prototype their idea through the creation of an interactive and immersive VR/AR experience.
“The key learning object for this is curiosity”, said Sue O’Malley, STEM Leader of Learning at St Paul’s College Gilles Plains.
“It gives the students the opportunity to create and become curious”.
The STEM project challenges students to research topics such as climate change, waste management, sustainability, and accessibility, pick a way to make an impact on that issue through an 'anything is possible' approach, and then use technology to design and create an innovative solution through VR/AR technology, drones, interactive smartboards, and more, to build real, digital and tactile representations of their ideas.
Topics chosen by participating Catholic schools included deforestation, sustainability and unhealthy coral (Mount Carmel College), and the impact of plastic pollution on ocean life (Nazareth Catholic College).
Year 9 Gleeson College student Amy said their group focussed on a current global issue.
“For the XR Challenge, our group has been focussing on the coronavirus and what a world would be like without a vaccine”.
Year 7 students at St Paul’s College took a more local approach, with an environmental study of Dry Creek Conservation Park, identifying pollution issues from rubbish getting into the creek there.
“We took an area of Dry Creek which is near the school, that is in really bad repair. The students visited the area every week throughout the term to explore the area, investigate issues that they found, and try to develop practical solutions to those problems”, said Sue.
Students then created a 3D virtual reality ‘space’ featuring ‘solution to pollution’ tips and pop-up information about the area, that can be accessed via QR codes. They plan to approach the local council to see if the QR codes can be placed on signs in the area to allow the public to use the virtual reality and learn about the impact the pollution.
The students have invented ‘The Kaye Cleaner’, a ‘quick and easy’ tub to get rid of the pollution and oil spills, which is also demonstrated and explained in the VR clip.
Take a look through the virtual reality 'space' here.
Throughout the XR Challenge, student groups were given access to Lumination’s ‘STEM Innovation Lab at Kent Town.
“The skills learnt in the lab were then transferred back into the classroom. To have the opportunity to meld the real world with the virtual world has been really exciting and the students have really taken to it”, said Sue.
“The ability to use amazing, immersive technology immediately engages the students so rather than just looking at an issue in the world, it really pulls them into it”, said Jason Puttnins, Science Learning Area Leader at Gleeson College Golden Grove.
“The students learn not just a really problem-solving approach to problems but also a practical and realistic approach. The use of VR allows them to extend their design thinking outside of what the classroom allows”, said Oscar Oliver-Dearman, Senior Physics Teacher Nazareth Catholic College.
“It’s given students a real sense of the purpose of technology, and that they can really use technology for education and for learning, and also to have the ability to teach others”, said Michael White, Head of Teaching and Learning at St Pauls College.
Congratulations to all students who participated in the 2020 STEM XR Challenge.
Year 3 students at St Francis Primary School Lockleys have designed and built a ‘future’ McLaren drift car, in a project designed to encourage the use of the students’ science, maths and design skills.
The car named “Tiger Stripe” is a 2-metre concept car they designed and built based on the track-focussed McLaren Senna GTR and is designed to be a drift car of the future.
