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STEM Engagement and Education Report 2021
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Contents Introduction
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Our future is in safe hands
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Our virtual classroom
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Education at the Discovery Centre
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Our learning modules
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“you can’t be what you can’t see.” Marian Wright Edelman
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Introduction Snowy Hydro is passionate about fostering the next generation of innovators. Our education program has provided students with valuable learning opportunities since Snowy Scheme construction began in 1949. Our program continues to ignite students’ imagination and expand their knowledge across a range of curriculum including Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects, plus geography, history, environment and social science subjects, albeit in more virtual and creative ways. Whether students visit our Snowy Hydro Discovery Centre and the Snowy Mountains region, or our online Next Generation Education Hub, or attend a virtual session hosted by our people, students are able to experience STEM like never before.
An overarching concept within the education program is to design the learning modules in a way that creates multiple touch-points with Snowy Hydro throughout a student’s school education. It is never too early to spark interest and keep a student engaged as they move through their school life. Snowy Hydro aims to inspire all Australians in STEM and renewable energy, and support lifelong learning. We place emphasis on critical thinking, problem-solving and hands-on experiences, to encourage students to grow their passion for innovation in STEM. We know the future is bright for students who have the opportunity to explore the world of STEM and understand Snowy Hydro should play an important role in discovering their future.
Students of all ages can discover more about the wonderful world of STEM and the history of the Snowy Scheme while learning about the engineering and science of the Scheme, as well as the diverse range of STEM career pathways through unique, real-life learning experiences.
STEM Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics
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Our people Our people are our greatest assets Snowy Hydro has a workforce featuring many experts in their field, who thrive on sharing their knowledge and passion with the next generation of innovators. Our engineers, scientists, spot traders, technologists and others use the core principles of science and mathematics on a daily basis and understand how integral these skills are for student growth.
The Snowy Hydro education program greatly benefits from our diverse workforce, including STEM experts with a range of specialties. Our learning modules harness this knowledge and provide students with a range of real-life, practical learning experiences. Our STEM experts play an important role in both the development and delivery of our educational content and experiences. When our employees work with students it reinforces the importance of transferable employability attributes across a diverse business like Snowy Hydro and beyond.
Power station visit
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Developing our future leaders in STEM Our education program creates a quality development pipeline into our entry-level career programs. We have found once students have experienced one or more of our learning modules they are more likely to embark on a career with Snowy Hydro. The students have a greater awareness and understanding of our business and are more likely to apply for work experience, or for our traineeship/apprenticeship programs.
Our different career modules aim to showcase a broad range of STEM careers and what they entail. This can help students with gaining a full understanding of the opportunities available to them, assist with subject selection and get fully prepared for a career in STEM.
Snowy Hydro has a strong interest in getting young people job-ready. With a range of career-based learning opportunities and initiatives, we aim to help students put their best foot forward when it comes to kick-starting their careers.
Creating a development cycle Our education program comes full circle with employees in our entry-level programs assisting with development and delivery of our educational content. We have identified the importance of aligning our education and development programs to engage with the next generation in the best way possible. Our development program participants work with students and add a fresh and modern
perspective to learning. Our graduates assist with building content, delivering presentations/demonstrations, creating video content, mentoring/assisting students with research, input into our Next Generation Education Hub and more.
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The virtual classroom Next Generation Education Hub and online learning The name of our overarching program, Next Generation, encapsulates our focus on fostering the next generation of innovators. In April 2021 our education program went online. The development of our digital learning platform, the Next Generation Education Hub, was designed to bring Snowy Hydro into classrooms and living rooms across Australia. The project was accelerated due to initial COVID impacts on visitation and was launched with four modules. The hub now has become an educational destination featuring nine modules with resources for teachers and students. Students can discover more about the STEM of Snowy Hydro with learning opportunities across engineering, science and our people.
Our key student demographic for physical visitation is stage 3 (years 5 & 6) and we made this the focal point for the development of our online content. Our online hub is an evolving, growing and exciting space. By reaching a wider audience we hope to inspire more students about the endless opportunities in STEM - now and in the future. One of the key focuses is to create content that is easy-to-use and accessible for teachers to enhance the learning experiences of their students. Each module is peer-reviewed by a panel of teachers and our internal subject matter experts. Feedback and collaboration are essential components of our content development process. This ensures our programs meet the needs of our audience with versatility, relevance and usability of the resources and materials contained in each module.
Virtual sessions
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To complement our Next Generation Education Hub, we have started hosting virtual learning sessions. These live streams bring our subject matter experts into classrooms and homes across the country in real-time. We either directly link into a classroom as an incursion, or we host regular virtual Q & A sessions on various subjects. The recordings of these sessions are available on our Next Generation Education Hub and form a valuable part of our learning modules.
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N I N E L E A RN I N G MO D U L ES
Each module includes lesson plans, fact sheets, activity sheets, ‘hands-on’ experiments, interactive content, videos and resources for all ages.
Intro d uct ion to S n ow y H ydro
Wate r of t he Snowy Sc heme
Power generat i on
Snowy 2.0
O u r p ro u d hi s tor y
The Snowy Sc heme Developm ents
The S n owy S ch em e wate r cyc l e
Wo me n i n STEM
The s c i ences of Snowy Hyd ro
CO M I N G SO O N
Our projection for the next year is to add another three modules to grow out our existing suite to meet the STEM and career learning needs for senior high school in the topic areas of environmental science, geography, maths and the path these subjects play in career choices.
The m at h s of t h e S n ow y S c h e me
T h e g e o gra p hy of t h e S n owy S c h em e
Envi ronment a l s c i ence
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Education at the Discovery Centre The Discovery Centre has been an educational destination for school students for decades. The original Power of Water program, developed in 2004, has recently undergone a complete overhaul to bring the core content into the modern day. Today we offer our schools a range of learning opportunities, tailored to meet their educational requirements. The new Power of Water program highlights the Snowy Scheme, Snowy Hydro and renewables. The Power of Water program provides students with an interactive experience at the Discovery Centre in Cooma. Under the guidance of our trained team of educators, students explore the interpretive space including the immersive theatre, Scheme model, interactive hub, tunnel boring machine scale model, real-time screens and the outdoor learning space (featuring a real-life turbine and rotor).
We offer a range of activities aligned with the Australian curriculum, designed to engage students collaboratively in our displays. Schools have the opportunity to build on this program with our tailored Silver and Gold STEM experiences. We develop these experiences in consultation with the teacher to meet learning requirements for specific STEM topics. The Silver experience allows for a choice of hands-on activity and the Gold experience with hands-on activities, demonstration and a guest speaker - eg. engineer. The future is looking bright for education at the Discovery Centre with the addition of a multi-purpose education room. This additional education space allows us to cater for larger school groups in new and interactive ways. This complements our state-of-the-art immersive theatre and interactive hub.
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H20 Kids school holiday program
Our H2O Kids school holiday program is delivered to local kids each school holidays through our region’s outside school hours care providers. The program engages local children in fun learning experiences covering a range of topics, from STEM to history, with new and exciting content developed each holiday period. The children are treated to a tailored experience with fun, hands-on activities focusing on STEM, problem-solving and learning about collaborative teamwork. Whether delivered as an outreach program or at our Snowy Hydro Discovery Centre, the program is led by our experienced team of educators. As an organisation based in rural Australia, we understand the difficulties of distance and where possible strive to bring our sessions to regional locations. To date the H2O Kids program has travelled to Jerrabomberra, Cooma, Tumut, Tumbarumba, Jindabyne and Berridale. Please refer to page 15 for our tailored PCYC summer holiday program.
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Learning opportunities at Snowy Hydro Module one Australian Women in STEM learning module
In FY21 as part of the Snowy 2.0 community engagement plan, Snowy Hydro ran an educational program and competition to name two of our tunnel boring machines after inspirational ‘Australian Women in STEM’. This is another example of a STEM program we have piloted in our local Snowy Mountains region which has now been distributed to primary and secondary educators across Australia. We aligned the module with the Australian Curriculum and engaged directly with regional schools. It was very successful in delivering public awareness, promotional and educational outcomes for the Snowy 2.0 project, broader business and STEM. The winning names were Kirsten and Florence based on community votes. Kirsten is named after astrophysicist and proud Wiradjuri woman, Kirsten Banks, and Florence is named after Australia’s first female electrical engineer, Florence Violet McKenzie. The first TBM on the Snowy 2.0 project was named earlier as the Lady Eileen Hudson.
The competition was held in mid-2021, with more than 70 names submitted by students from 15 local schools. The accompanying education program ‘Women in STEM’ highlighted STEM career pathways locally, strengthened relationships with local schools and put our schools on a national stage through the community voting process. Feedback from local principals and teachers has been extremely positive about the learning module, which is available on Snowy Hydro’s Next Generation online Education Hub.
Kirsten Banks and Kobe Burnes
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Module two Annual Science of the Snowy Scheme competition
Each year the Science of the Snowy Scheme competition is open to year 3-6 primary students living in the Snowy Mountains and surrounds. The 2020 and 2021 competitions received more than 300 entries from more than 20 local schools. The competition and complementary learning program encouraged student-led research and engagement, classroom-based collaborative learning and extension activities. From their preliminary learning, students submitted drawings, digital designs, posters and models, or a video presentation, to demonstrate their understanding of renewable energy. The holistic program was designed to give students confidence and inspire a sense of curiosity to further develop their knowledge.
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We introduced community voting as a way to place student creativity and ingenuity in the spotlight. This allowed students to share their entries with everyone across Australia. Thousands of votes were received, which was a fantastic way to engage the public in Snowy Hydro’s education program. The winning entries allowed students and their classmates to visit the Tumut 3 Power Station. This developed their preliminary learning about the unique way Snowy Hydro generates electricity, into practical applications. Other students won virtual meet-and-greets with our Red Energy ambassadors and TBM namesake Kirsten Banks, who provided positive mentors for the students.
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Module three PCYC school holiday program and competition
Based on the success of the local competition and as part of our commitment to inspiring young people in STEM, we expanded the program to reach 65 PCYC clubs across NSW in 2021. The children who engaged in the competition were from remote and diverse backgrounds. Children between the ages of five and 12 participated in a range of interactive activities focused on renewable energy and Snowy Hydro. Due to the PCYC focus on sport and physical activities, we developed STEM-related ball games to align with the PCYC philosophy.
The activities were deliberately designed to repurpose, reuse and recycle materials on-hand, or materials that were supplied by Snowy Hydro. Flexibility was built into the program, with an easy-to-deliver model, so the facilitators could maximise learnings for children around Snowy Hydro and generating electricity. This allowed facilitators to deliver learning materials with minimal training and to maximise the benefits of engagement with our programs. Learning about renewable energy has key advantages. It transcends barriers such as language or culture and engages the children in the possibilities of a career in STEM.
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Module four Senior physics module
The annual Physics and Engineering HSC learning module for senior students brings power generation to life. In early 2021, the program was delivered to year 11 and 12 students from Jindabyne Central School and Cooma’s Monaro High School. The module was designed to align with HSC outcomes, specifically relating to electromagnetism. The two-day program included both theory and practical components delivered by Snowy Hydro graduate engineers and other STEM experts. The presentation explored the underlying principles students learn in HSC-level physics and how they apply to power generation at Snowy Hydro. For the practical component, students visited Guthega Power Station and Jindabyne Pumping Station. As part of the feedback provided by science teacher Charles Dean from Jindabyne Central School, he commented on the immersive experience positively impacting his students’ learning, increasing their interest in STEM.
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“A particular highlight for the group was a demonstration of the start-up procedure and full operation of one of the generators. The sight, sound and feel of the moving water under our feet, of the turbine and the generator above our heads filled our senses. It was a highly impressive demonstration of how physics theory has been applied on a large scale.” The students were so impressed by the expertise, knowledge, scalability and dynamic experience. Mr Dean expressed the potential for future STEM professionals to emerge from the program and was excited about what the future holds for Snowy Hydro’s education program and the opportunities for students.
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School case study St Joseph’s, Adelong Year 6
St Josephs Adelong took our Science of the Snowy Scheme competition to the next level in 2020. Under the guidance of a very proactive year 6 teacher, the students engaged with the Science of the Snowy Scheme program and competition as part of their classroom learning. During a six-week unit on electricity and energy, the students were able to explore the concepts and create innovative entries based on their extended knowledge. The preferred teaching approach adopted for STEM is investigative, research or inquiry-based learning. The teacher explains to the children “we are all learning together” and maintains a student-centred approach, guiding the students through questions, promoting critical-thinking and investigative skills in learning how methods work and analysing and interpreting data. She does this by not presenting the information or answers up front, but rather supplies them with a range of scenarios, questions and problems for the students to navigate. Through this style of learning students are actively engaged with the topic and are motivated to discover more to support their ideas and investigations. As a result, some very clever individuals were competition winners and in addition, won a whole class experience visiting Tumut 3 Power Station, with related fun, hands-on activities to enjoy with all of their classmates.
In preparation for the Tumut 3 visit, the teacher adopted an approach to incorporate the prize as part of her teaching strategy. It was a way to bring a practical real-life experience to complement and consolidate her in-class work with the students. The students of St Joseph’s asked quality, well-informed questions reflecting critical thinking and a sound foundation knowledge around electricity and how Snowy Hydro is underpinning our renewable future. This experience demonstrates the following key outcomes; 1. That the value of foundation knowledge acquired prior to the experience is essential for deeper conceptual understanding, which brings a quicker appreciation for the practical experience 2. Value in providing resources and materials to complement an education-based competition will not only assist teachers with effective in class pedagogy, but also quality entries meeting the competition task criteria effectively. The winning experience enabled consolidation of in-class learning, while also maximising and broadening further engagement with Snowy Hydro through the science of the Snowy competition
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S N OW Y H Y D RO.CO M. AU
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