Hawker College held its annual WINGS event last month, encouraging female students to take an interest in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).
The Education Directorate said the event, now in its third year, saw students from across ACT public schools take part in a wide range of forums, guest speaker lectures and practical experiments.
“This year’s event included events as diverse as demonstrations of a robot walking and speaking, pH testing of kangaroo droppings and blood samples in chemistry labs, and even the ANU solar racing car,” the Directorate said.
Year 10 student from Alfred Deakin High School, Christina said she’s interested in a career in STEM and was among the more than 100 students who attended the event.
“At Alfred Deakin, we started a Girls in STEM club there,” Christina said.
“There are about a dozen girls involved and get together once every two weeks to talk about STEM,” she said.
“We have some girls that are interested in programming, some girls into medicine, some girls into space, some girls into engineering, it really varies; our teacher tries to find things that would suit our interests.”
Christina said she was interested in biology and genetics, and enjoyed meeting female professionals in STEM fields at WINGS.
“I think it is cool seeing other women STEM professionals here as well – they are people to look up to,” she said.
“Some girls don’t feel they’re good enough to do STEM – so when you go to these events, and it is hands on, it is really fun; and some girls will think, ‘maybe I am interested in this?’,” Christina said.
