Engineers Without Borders from the University of Sydney recently visited Berinba Public School year five and six students to run an exciting engineering workshop. Photo at top: Berinba students Avah Muscat, Addie Cooke, Mia Warren and Payton Kaveney
Engineers Without Borders is a volunteer-based program run by engineering students from various universities who travel to schools across NSW. University students involved in Engineers Without Borders study a range of engineering courses, such as biomedical or aeronautical engineering.
During the Berinba visit, students created bionic legs out of household objects. They also made miniature wind turbines from cork, cardboard, and matchsticks to explore renewable energy and tested how many watts of power the turbines could generate.
Students were given a brief and had to come up with their own ideas on how to create the bionic legs and other activities.
Stage three teacher Miss Grace Armour explained the children enjoyed the hands-on experience and discovering the different types of engineering available to study at university.
“A lot of them only really know the basics of buildings and cars, so it was good for them to see how engineering can be used within the medicine profession, and in terms of renewable energy and environmental sustainability. I think they were really excited by how it opened their eyes to other job prospects,” said Miss Armour.
“It’s especially good for the girls, as we had quite a few female engineering students come out, which shows them that, while it is male-dominated, engineering is definitely not just for males,” she added.
The Engineers Without Borders visit ties into the existing STEM curriculum at Berinba Public School as it covers key STEM areas such as planning, designing, teamwork, and especially using problem-solving skills.
Throughout the year, Berinba will involve students in a range of other STEM activities and incursions. This year in term one, the school held a rocket building workshop. Specialists from Crookwell visited the school to build rockets with the children, which they found very exciting.
For science week this year, Berinba will be holding a second rocket building workshop which will be school-wide, from kindergarten to year six. All children will have the opportunity to build their own rockets and have fun.
Southerly Jones
