Igniting passion
For St Ursula’s College students Flora Higham and Emily Mcerlean, going to school is so much more than simply learning the standard Queensland curriculum. Last year, the school introduced ‘Ignite’: a special program aimed at assisting students to develop ‘passion projects’ around any area of interest, and also by providing access to industry experts for advice.
With Hayley Grabham and Steve Brodrick mentoring five lessons each fortnight, participants have projects around topics such animation, history, 3D printing, music tutorials and more.
This year, Grade 9 student Emily is continuing her coding journey from 2019.
“Last year I decided I wanted to learn the basics of coding, which I had never done before – and it was something really different.
“I learnt python coding and at the end I coded a game to show that I had learnt it,” Emily says.
“This year I wanted to take the skills I had learnt last year and put it into something more physical, so a robot or something, and so I decided to learn how to build robots and then code them.”
For first-timer Flora (Grade 8), discovering a passion for writing was recent as well.
“I actually only found out I enjoyed writing in Year 7 when I had an assessment on it, and since then I’ve been really into writing,” she explains.
Still in its early stages, her book is about a group of five children who find themselves isolated in an area that has aspects quite different to the normal world; they don’t know each other or why they’re there, and they have to figure out how to get home.
Flora is also incorporating a clever narrative device where the reader doesn’t know the gender of the main character for most of the book – meaning anyone can identify with them.
“I’ve never really been a down-to-earth person, so I guess it’s all the ideas that are inside my head coming out onto the page,” Flora says of her inspiration for the book.
It’s clear that both girls are passionate about their chosen area, also expressing an interest to continue learning and/or undertake a future career in their fields.
It’s important to teachers and mentors at the school that Ignite participants are able to give the program their best without it detracting from other important elements of life, so each selfnominated student is carefully vetted to ensure they will be able to self-manage and keep balance between Ignite and regular school work, as well as having a clear vision for their project.