PROJECT S TEAMS F ORWARD
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NBN STEM+ X North Queensland mentor Craig Jost said with high- speed internet similar opportunities were a possibility for more students in regional and rural areas.
“The kids here at Townsville Central Primary are competing against seven other schools around the country. This is the only school in Queensland involved in the initiative so that’s really exciting,” he said.
“We really want to show that it doesn’t matter where you’re located, whether you’re in a regional centre, a metro centre or a rural location, with fast broadband you have opportunities for education.
“The reason NBN has got behind STEM+ X is because these skills are essential for the jobs of the future.”
The STEM+ X initiative was developed by NBN Co in partnership with the Australian Business Community Network.
NBN chief network deployment officer Kathrine Dyer said one in two Australians were predicted to need online skills such as programming, software development and digital technology to remain competitive in the job market by 2030.
“Access to fast broadband plays a fundamental role in providing the infrastructure to support educating tomorrow’s workforce,” she said.
“We are passionate about bridging the digital divide and are continually working to ensure remote and rural communities can access online education resources.” The STEAM Lab students at William Ross State High School have taken on a larger project this year after completing smaller workshops during 2017.
The STEAM Lab group is made up of students across all year levels dedicated to Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics.
This year we are looking at ways to control the water weed infestation of Ross River, particularly the invasive Salvinia weed.
To assist us in this we have established a number of community partnerships and are working with Townsville City Council, Coastal Dry Tropics Landcare, Conservation Volunteers Australia ( Creekwatch), SSAF and Angus Marine.
To begin our journey and gather our initial information we headed to the Sustainability Centre at Pallaranda.
Here we were met by some of our community partner representatives including Deputy Mayor Les Walker and Townsville City Council Sustainability Officer Dylan Furnell who explained how drones can be used in the targeting and clearing of weeds from rivers.
He also explained how they capture pests using new technology like thermal cameras.
This presentation gave us lots of information about the physical controls available.
This was followed by a quick workshop presented by Lucy Holmes from Coastal Dry Tropics
Landcare and Townsville City Council Community Engagement Officer Helen Manski.
We assisted them in collecting samples from the river and searching for macro invertebrates in those samples.
This allowed us to determine the health of the waterway based on the sensitivity of the creatures found.
During this we discovered that the water was clean and unpolluted as there was evidence of sensitive macroinvertebrates in our samples.
This workshop concluded with a discussion about the Salvinia Weevil, which is used as an agent of biological pest control.
We have now formed a group of students that will be growing the Salvinia Weevil to investigate how effective they are in controlling the growth and spread of the salvinia weed and to also support to current work of Townsville City Council.
The final part of our tour looked at the existing weed harvester used by the council.
This method of mechanical control currently provides a valuable service in the management of the weed infestation in the Ross River, but we discovered that there are also a number of limitations.
Jason Lange was willing to answer all of our questions and gave us lots of constructive information about not only the machine, but also the problem itself.
Brimming with ideas and initial data, we headed back to school.
Over the year we are planning on developing designs that can target the physical, biological and mechanical solutions to the weed infestation.