Melissah Cook is very familiar with Questacon. She’s a primary school teacher in the Australian Capital Territory, and has visited the Centre as a student, a parent, a teacher with a class, and as a teacher for professional development.
Melissah says she has benefited greatly from Questacon’s accessibility, which has given her opportunities to build her own STEM knowledge as well as that of her students.
“I don’t have a science background, so being able to access a resource like this is wonderful. Questacon also offers professional learning – a colleague recently attended a session and said that the setup was amazing. Questacon really caters for both students and teachers.”
Questacon is making STEM education more engaging and accessible to both teachers and students with several types of professional development and learning opportunities for teachers, helping teachers to teach and students to grow.
Melissah has found the hands-on nature at Questacon especially beneficial for students who are not always engaged in the classroom.
“Every room at Questacon is hands-on, fun and engaging, which is something that schools need to do more of. The looks on the kids’ faces while at Questacon… I have had one student almost cry when we had to leave! His parents ended up getting him an annual membership and taking him all the time because they saw how engaged he was and how much he loved it. He’s now in high school and heavily involved in science. I like to think that visit to Questacon started his love of science.”
Melissah explains how she and her colleagues build on their Questacon experiences to continue the students’ learning and engagement with STEM – and build skills in communication and confidence – in both the classroom and at home.
“We try to link the excursion with the science topic that we’re teaching at the time. We then do a reflection, whether that’s a writing piece or having the kids talk about it. We post lots of photos on our digital portfolio platform so that parents can see what the kids are doing. That really fosters conversations at home.”
Even the pandemic didn’t stop the outreach, with Questacon providing virtual workshops and professional development opportunities for teachers, and resources for students.
“There’s so much online that we can look at. We find great activities on the website that cater to any age. Our STEM specialist also regularly talks to the people at Questacon and gets ideas on activities we can do. Questacon have also donated things to the school and offer whatever they can to help us with the kids. It’s like making a new friendship that just keeps on growing.”
Questacon offers a range of professional learning experiences for educators to boost their skills and confidence in teaching STEM to their students.
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