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ACADEMIC
INTRODUCING ST PETERS' TECHGIRLS Eight years ago, the Techgirls Movement Foundation ran its first Techgirls Competition—a program designed to change the way girls perceive and engage in STEM. Since its inception, more than 11,000 girls have signed up to be part of the hands-on competition and, this year, a group of St Peters students joined their ranks.
KEL SEY BRICKNELL
communications officer
W
hen you think about what an App Creator looks like, your first thought may not be of a nine-year-old girl, but perhaps it should be. This year, St Peters entered three teams into the Techgirls Competition—two made up of Year 4 students and one with a mix of Years 5-7 students. Challenged to find a technology-driven solution to a social, business or technical issue, the teams met once a week for three months. Together, they chose a topic, identified each other’s strengths and developed a range of STEM skills. With a Lockdown thrown into the mix, the girls adapted to meeting on Teams instead of face-to-face just weeks before the competition deadline, and rose above to produce high-quality business plans, pitch videos and working app prototypes. So, what solutions did they come up with? The subject areas our students chose varied—from game-based apps designed to encourage users to rethink their actions in the real world, to service-based apps hoping to improve mental health. Each idea indicated a deep concern for social issues and a desire to give back to the wider community. 'Envirofriend', the app created by Year 4 team, the Dragonets, was an educational, game-based app intended to encourage all ages to help the environment in the real world. 'Pet Matcher', created by the other Year 4 team, StarDragon, looked to improve mental wellbeing for people with disabilities by helping them find a pet to cuddle. The final app, created by two Year 5, one Year 6 and two Year 7 students, was an mHealth solution—one which used mobile and wireless technologies to support the achievement of health objectives. Their 'Sign-age App' was created to teach Auslan to children from 9 – 14 years old, enabling them to better
Plus Ultra | November 2021
communicate with their Deaf or hearingimpaired peers. To create their apps and develop their business plans and pitches, each team worked with a St Peters eLearning coach and an industry-based mentor (assigned by Techgirls). The Dragonets worked with Mrs Rachael Yates and Danielle Emerson— Innovation Lead, Asia & Australia at Herbert Smith Freehills; StarDragon worked with Mrs Amanda Rablin and Angela Luu—Legal Operations Manager at Herbert Smith Freehills; and our Sign-age Appers worked with Miss Meg Foley and Dr Urooj R. Khan— Senior Lecturer in Digital Health at La Trobe University. Our girls got a lot out of their coaches and mentors and it was wonderful to learn how much their mentors enjoyed the experience too. “This amazing program is changing the way the girls perceive STEM, combining critical thinking and creative problem-solving to prototype a solution,” Dr Khan shared. “Congratulations and well done [to my girls]! Always remember it is more about your learning along the journey than just winning or losing. No matter what results come out, [I am] so proud of you all!” St Peters’ eLearning staff reiterated the pride Dr Khan had for the girls. “They were really enthusiastic,” Amanda said. “We had a good mix of skills in each team too—we had people that really wanted to do the pitch; some with a high level of planning and organisation skills; expert coders; design people…it was really good to have them all come together.” While they each loved using their different skills and strengths throughout the competition, there was one unanimous highlight for the girls—coding. Most of the students had some experience using
