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Blue Devils: Girls in STEM

Students participate in scientific study of endangered flora and create augmented reality website for visitors to identify flora in reserve.

As part of a funded scientific study the girls work with Ballarat Environment Network to identify, GPS locate, sex, measure and tag endangered Pimelea spinecens plants growing in our grassland reserve.They are building a website that links QR codes placed next to indigenous flora species to life cycle photographs and information about the plant including conservation status and indigenous usage.

Overview

Information on this page is provided by the innovator and has not been evaluated by HundrED.

2017

Established

-

Children

1

Countries
Updated
March 2018
It’s good not just to be exploring The Common but learning new stuff every day and working with the scientists from BEN (Ballarat Environment Network.)

About the innovation

We are just girls saving the world one plant at a time.

The aims of this project are to create a safe place for girls to be, to deliver student driven real time, hands-on, real world, learning with usable outcomes in an adult world. I believe the validity of what the girls are doing in this project has made them believe in themselves, that they can be agents for change and that they can and do have a future pathways in STEM.

The Blue Devils are fifteen smart, funny, determined girls. Our namesake is the Blue Devil Eryngium ovinum, rugged, resilient and beautiful reminding us always of its prickly presence on The Common when we kneel down to look at things.

What is The Common? A remnant Western Volcanic Plains Grassland reserve at the edge of our town, home to several endangered flora species.

Working together with naturalists and scientists from Ballarat Environment Network on a three year study of the endangered Spiny Rice Flower (Pimelea spinescens). The girls have learnt about the consequences of single species loss to biodiversity and are determined to address this in whatever way they can.

They have their own quadrant to monitor on a quarterly basis for the duration of the project. The students work through transects of The Common to locate, identify, measure, determine gender, count, tag, record and GPS locate individual Pimelea plants.

As well the girls are building an augmented reality website, https://skiptonbluedevils.weebly.com/ that allows visitors to The Common to scan 3-D printed QR codes installed next to plants linking to photograph sets showing the lifecycle of that plant, information including facts, distribution, conservation status and indigenous usage of the plants.

What next, the girls have a list of ideas for future actions/projects they would like to implement on The Common including guided tours, harvest and propagation of seed for planting projects, an art show and exploring how indigenous people used The Common and the flora and fauna it contains.

Implementation steps

Where to begin.

Find a place, issue or community space explore and audit it with your students. Cool Australia https://www.coolaustralia.org has some great audits to do at school including waste, energy and biodiversity these are a great starting point and can be adapted to fit a local park or reserve. As well they have versions for lower, middle, upper primary and secondary students. Get the students to discuss and interpret their observations, findings and data. Next they should brainstorm the issues they raise and formulate some project ideas.

Tip: Make sure your students are the ones doing the thinking/talking and you are the facilitator.

Making Plans

Divide your students into groups of three or four, l like to ensure each group has a mix of skills, intelligences, and thinking styles. Ask the groups to choose an idea to discuss and determine what it might look like as a project.

Tip: l give students a list of points to consider.

Will we need a lot or a little adult help with our project?

Can we do it all by ourselves?

How might we find people and things to complete our project?

Will we need a lot or a little amount of money to start and or complete our project?

Could we complete our project for free?

Could our project possibly make some money?

Will we need permission and who from to undertake our project?

Will our project take a long or a short time to complete?

Will our project completely finish or can we grow it?

Will we need to maintain our project once it is finished? How might we do this?

Will our project have a positive impact on us, and/or our community and environment?

Bring the groups together to share their plan ideas and discuss them in relation to the points of consideration. Get the students to choose a plan to develop as a class.

I have found that the students are very good at choosing a really good option when they have completed this process.

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