Henley High School (Years 9 and 10)
Introduction
Henley High School is a 8-12 co-educational government school located in Henley Beach, South Australia on the Traditional Lands of the Kaurna Peoples of the Adelaide plains. The school l chose the development of a biofuel as the focus for its STEM Connections project. As part of their project brief, students were asked to investigate material that had potential for use as a biofuel that was easy to grow and harvest and did not take up arable land that could be used for farming.
All 240 students in Year 9 participated in the STEM Connections project. They worked in groups of five to six and had the same teacher for Mathematics and Science. Technologies staff made themselves available to provide support for students as they needed it.
While there were subject-specific assessment tasks, the project culminated in the STEM Challenge Expo. The school's industry and university partners were part of the judging panel at the expo. They had participated at key times in the project.
The project ran intensively over a period of five weeks.
School sector: Government
School type: Co-educational
Year range: 8–12
Total enrolments: 1342
Location: Metropolitan
Natasha Woodcock, Assistant Principal learning growth, pedagogy, integrated learning and STEM and teachers Chris Cilento and Andrew Sayers at Henley High School were interviewed five years after the STEM Connections project. They discuss the sustainability of the project since it started and the impact the project has had on students and staff.
