Budding designers have their say
Schools
A new building project is giving students at Saint David’s Parish School an insight in what’s involved in designing a first class learning space.
Year 4/5 students at the Tea Tree Gully school have been working with local architects and engineers to conduct research into suitable materials and furniture.
Principal Leanne Lawler said with construction work on a two-storey building due to start next term, it was a great opportunity to “take our students out of text book examples and directly into a real world learning environment”.
“You see how students are immediately more engaged because their learning is personal, it is relevant and it will impact their future environment at our school,” she said.
“Our students all feel like they have a real voice in the changes that are taking place here.”
Using donations of material samples and products from local businesses, the Year 4/5 students have created their own furniture designs for an educational environment.
An online program called Tinkercad has enabled them to create their designs and bring the prototypes to life using a 3D printer.
They have also been busy fitting our floorplan models, creating furniture in proportion to the space, creating logos, designing business cards and writing a pitch proposal.
“We worked as a team and had fun,” said Sienna. “I learnt that you have to use maths in the outside world.”
“I also learn how hard it is and to not give up when you’re really stressed out, just keep pushing,” said Sian.
The students’ work was on show at a Learning Expo held last month.
In 2018 and 2019 Saint David’s is involved in the Catholic Education SA STEM UniSA Project aimed at optimising STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) in SA Catholic schools. Funding provided by CESA will be used to provide teacher release time for STEM work, professional learning and collaboration with other partners.
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