Engagement with schools
14 June 2008
Three separate events, all taking place over a single week, have reinforced to me just how much the University has become embedded into the Sunshine Coast educational calendar. This is important to us because our mission stresses engagement activities as a focus for stimulating the future development of the region. However, on a more personal level, it is also most rewarding to see the campus being invaded on a regular basis by school students from all over the region, who increasingly look very much at ease finding their way around their local university.
‘Voices on the Coast’, which has been developed through a partnership led by Immanuel Lutheran College, has been operating for 13 years now. This youth literature festival brings some of Australia’s finest writers, poets, illustrators and performers to the Sunshine Coast to work with our young people. It was awarded the 2008 Maroochy Shire Council Australia Day Award for Community Event of the Year. Around 100 schools participated this year and we had 5,000 students on campus. Despite torrential rain and a building evacuation (due to a phantom gas leak) on the opening day, it was the biggest program ever. The reach of Voices was made clear to me in the week preceding the event when I spent a most rewarding time as Principal for the Day at James Nash High in Gympie. Teachers and students there were looking forward to the following week and the opportunities it would provide to them. Schools from up to 200km away are regular participants.
The week prior to Voices saw the annual schools’ math tournament held at the Innovation Centre. Organised by the local mathematics teaching community, 300 high school students participated this year and they too had a building evacuation due to a power outage, but the tournament progressed without missing a beat. Each year, I am impressed by the sense of camaraderie, fun and cooperation that is associated with this event. There is also a healthy level of competitiveness. This is particularly conveyed to me through students I recognise from previous years who often let me know how the status of their team has fared since last year. However, the overwhelming atmosphere is one of a celebration of learning, teamwork and recognition of a discipline area that is absolutely crucial to the future of knowledge economies. This bodes well for the future of the region providing we can keep these young people on the Coast, or at least keep them involved in careers that rely on mathematics. It is paradoxical that the universal importance of mathematics to so many aspects of contemporary society and careers is not well appreciated by the community at large.
The third event on campus in this very hectic week was the inaugural Science, Engineering and Technology Expo. Targeting two different cohorts of students, one at Year 5 and the other at Year 9, this event was sponsored by a range of agencies including the Queensland Government, Science Centre of Innovation and Professional Practice and the Office for Women, Engineers Australia, Girls in ICT, Australian Geographic and CSIRO. The hundreds of students who participated took part in hands-on science activities like robotics, forensics, cool chemistry, gene technology and an engineering challenge. In this case, the University was able to provide access to state-of-the-art science laboratories as a base to the program. It is another example of a regional approach to lifting the aspirations and competency of young people in a cluster of disciplines that are crucial to the future.
And the World Environment Day event should have been crammed in there as well, but due to the weather we’ll look forward to hosting this event, of special interest to schools and their communities, on 21 June.
Professor Greg Hill is Acting Vice-Chancellor at the University of the Sunshine Coast.