YEAR 4 students from Our Lady of Fatima Primary School in Palmyra are just some of the many WA pupils lining up to experience next month’s two-day Resources Technology Showcase.
The Palmyra school’s Information and Communications Technology teacher Denise Plain said giving students the chance to see how some of the world’s biggest companies were using technology was a natural extension of their “classroom design and tech”.
“Even at this young age these kids are immersed in computer labs, so they’re not scared at all,” she said. “They really are just sponges.”
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READ NOWMrs Plain said Our Lady of Fatima introduced basic coding at pre-primary level so that children were fully immersed from an early age.
She said that when students entered secondary school they were well prepared with the knowledge that they either needed to “hone their passion for digital technology or choose another path”.
The year 4 students have been working with pocket-sized coding robots, such as ozobots and bee-bots, as well as tiny programmable microbits, so they were particularly looking forward to the showcase’s robotics element, Mrs Plain said.
But the chance to interact with the showcase doesn’t end there. All WA schools are being offered to opportunity to take part through BHP’s Future Ready STEM Challenge, which is set to kick off on November 4 and offers winners the chance to scoop part of the massive $100,000 prize pot.
Schools can select from a number of different challenges which are linked to the mining and energy industries and the competition is designed to ensure it is accessible to students of different levels of ability and schools with different levels of resourcing as well as work in concert with curriculums.
Teachers can visit thewest.com.au/bhpfutureready to download a teacher’s resource pack from November 4 and groups have until December 2 to enter the competition.
The Resources Technology Showcase will be held on November 27-28 at the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre. Visit https://rtsperth.com/ for more details.