Newton Moore Senior High School students have soared above and beyond in the school’s 2017 Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics curriculum.
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The school’s education support centre group got to work creating a biogas digester, with help from South32 process engineers Anthony Stewart and Darren Hope.
The students researched forms of food waste, built biogas digesters, and presented their findings.
Mr Stewart said the three-week experiment taught the students about the exploration into renewable energy resources.
He said South32’s interaction with South West schools provided an insight into local industry.
Newton Moore SHS head of mathematics Ashley Stewart said the program raised awareness about waste and energy uses.
“They got to use numbers in a different way than they normally would in class,” she said.
“It was good for them to do other mathematics and see the application in the real world.”
The Year 7 girls’ Living and Learning class’s term four project saw participants create solar powered phone chargers.
The girls developed phone chargers of varying designs and materials.
The group also created an ‘electric train’, designed to test the interaction between magnets and copper.
Mrs Stewart said the class’s willingness to learn and determination achieved positive results.
“The girls did a lot of scientific research on electromagnetic induction and they learned to understand the background on electricity on how it works,” she said.
“Then we started looking at experiments on how we can make electricity with motion.”
The group has plans to create chargers to be placed around the school for student use.
The Year 8 engineering specialist class students built mini-rovers through the SUBS in Schools program.
Newton Moore SHS specialist science teacher Tania Richman said the students learned about soldering, engineering principles, buoyancy and submarine operation.
The team built their mini-rovers in term three before competing in this year’s state finals in Perth.
Ms Richman said the students worked together effectively throughout each stage.
“Their confidence grew, they have got a whole new skillset and they are using real-life skills in all of these things,” she said.
“It works really well because the skills that they tend to take the skills they learned in engineering into other classes.” She said the course was set at a Year 10 level of comprehension.
