Why we need more girls to embrace STEM

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Shane Green: 

Hi everyone and welcome to isPodcast, ISV’s show for schools and the wider community. I'm Shane Green. Today, Natalie Moutafis speaks with Australia's Women in STEM Ambassador, Professor Lisa Harvey-Smith, about our increasingly technological world and how we can ensure that everyone is included in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics – or STEM.  

But first, Mike Broadstock talks with ISV Chief Executive Michelle Green, on how the choices parents are making for their children, are changing the face of Australian education, and how the ISV poetry competition for students promises to take them on a journey of imagination. 

Michael Broadstock: 

The latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the media coverage that followed showed that the face of education is changing. More parents are choosing Independent schools than ever. That's encouraging news, Michelle. 

Michelle Green: 

It's very encouraging, although not surprising for us because we've seen the demographic change in our schools very much over the last 10 to 15 years. So, now, about 160,000 students attend a Victorian Independent school, which is an increase of about four and a half thousand on the previous year, which is 2.9 per cent increase, but what's behind that are a whole lot of young people attending some very, very different schools and some schools in high growth areas, but also schools in regional Victoria. So, the rate of growth for us is higher than in government and Catholic schools, which I think might surprise a few people. 

Michael Broadstock: 

That's even with a low population growth and the impact of the rising cost of living on family budgets as well. 

Michelle Green: 

Absolutely. So, what it shows is that people are willing to make sacrifices to send their children to a school that meets their individual needs, and that seems to be holding up despite the economic pressure that people find themselves under. So, parents are valuing the autonomy and flexibility of our schools and it's good to see that they continue to do so. 

Michael Broadstock: 

I think it's worth drilling down into the data though to see where the growth is occurring. 

Michelle Green: 

I think so, and it's important for governments, for policymakers, but also for schools to know the growth is strongest in lower fee schools, which serves families from the lower socioeconomic backgrounds. 

Close to 60,000 of our students come from families from low SES and close to half of our 230 Independent schools charge fees of less than $7500 a year.  

So, this is reflecting Australian society, mostly growth areas on Melbourne's fringe, lots of areas that are popular with young families, many of them who are migrants. Those migrants have a very strong commitment to the value of education, and they know what a good education can provide.  

There are also people who want to put time into their child's education, so it's a double whammy. They are enrolling them in the schools that they feel comfortable with, but they're also supporting their students and our schools, which is wonderful.  

Children in our schools get opportunities to grow in an environment that matches their family values, and I think that's driven the growth. 

Michael Broadstock: 

So, is it just a matter of the Independent schools stepping up in those growth corridors, meeting the need for education for families, or is it meeting other needs, particular needs? 

Michelle Green: 

Yes, it's not just in the growth corridors. Australian society’sWhy changing, and our figures show Islamic schools, for example, are maintaining their pattern of strong growth. They enrolled about a thousand new students last year, so now they educate close to about 16,000 young Victorians, and our older well-established schools, by the way, continue to grow. Many of the inner city schools are close to physical capacity, which is limiting further growth. 

Michael Broadstock: 

What are we to make these figures? The growth, where it's taking place and the backgrounds of the students that we're talking about? 

Michelle Green: 

It's always interesting to talk about Independent schools because our schools are so diverse, and they don't fit a stereotype. What we can see is there's a large and growing group of parents who aspire for an education that matches their families and their children, and these are people who are not high income earners, but they're willing to make a sacrifice to give their kids the best education that they can afford, and so it means that we are not outliers.  

It means that governments and education commentators now need to see that Independent schools are not on the fringe of the education system. They are central to the Australian education system, alongside government and Catholic schools. We are ready to play an important role in preparing young Australians for the future because that's what we've been doing. 

Michael Broadstock: 

So, a change of pace: ISV’s student poetry competition is back in 2023. 

Michelle Green: 

Yes, and we always get very excited, or I always get very excited, about the poetry competition. So, we launched this four years ago and the competition has grown, it's bigger every year. Last year we got more than 500 entries from all school sectors. You don't have to attend an Independent school to be part of the poetry competition. It's for everyone, like poetry’s for everyone. 

Michael Broadstock: 

So, each year we have an optional theme for our young poets. So, far we've had hope, joy, and belonging. This year, it's journeys. Why journeys? 

Michelle Green: 

Well, Ralph Waldo Emerson said, 'Life is a journey. It's not a destination', and we chose journeys because this has a potential to inspire student poets. A journey can be a physical journey, it can be a metaphorical journey. Winnie the Pooh said, 'Life is a journey to be experienced, not a problem to be solved.’ 

The adventures that we have, often on a journey toward our goals, they're more memorable and exciting than the goals themselves. 

Michael Broadstock: 

Like a road trip. 

Michelle Green: 

Like a road trip. We all love a road trip and poetry on a road trip: fantastic.  

It's the things that you do along your journey. It's the things that you read. It's the people that you meet. It's the aspirations that you have. It reveals most about us, and so journeys for, and poetry, seem to us to be just a natural transition. 

Michael Broadstock: 

Joseph Campbell wrote about the Hero's Journey, not the Hero's Destination. 

Michelle Green: 

That's right. 

Michael Broadstock: 

Last year we added performance poetry to written poems as a competition category. What is performance poetry and how can students take part? 

Michelle Green: 

So, performance poetry is what it sounds like. It's poetry that's written with the aim of performance and we used to find this with young poets and with older poets who would stand and recite their poetry and their poetry would gain from that.  

It's a really great initiative. We had such an enthusiastic response, both from the poets themselves and everyone who watched their performances, and I could imagine when I was seeing these performances, many of them filmed on an iPhone, that families were having a whole different view of poetry during those videos than they had before. 

So, students can make a video of themselves, they could get mum or dad to do it, or sisters or brothers. They can speak or perform their words. Some of the performances have been startling and they bring such energy and conviction, so we say if students like music or catchy rhymes or hip hop or rap, this might be a great way of having your poetry performed by you, and watched by us, and by anyone else who's interested in the student poetry competition, and that's a lot of people. 

Michael Broadstock: 

Link to that in the show description. Thanks for joining us, Michelle. 

Michelle Green: 

Thank you, Mike. 

Shane Green: 

Lisa Harvey Smith is a Professor of Practice at the University of New South Wales and has been Australia's women and STEM Ambassador since 2018. She talks with Natalie Moutafis about the resources schools, teachers and families can use to encourage women and girls to participate in STEM and why we need them to. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

Welcome to isPodcast, Lisa. 

Lisa Harvey-Smith: 

Thank you so much. It's great to be with you. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

So, you are Australia's Women and STEM Ambassador. Can you give us a little update of what that means to those that don't know? 

Lisa Harvey-Smith: 

Yeah, absolutely. Well, my background, by the way, is an astrophysicist, so I'm a research scientist. I worked at the CSRO for 10 years, and before that across different countries, researching how space works and the universe, how stars are born and how they die, but in 2018, the government became interested in trying to promote STEM science, technology, engineering, and maths to a broader range of people because we have skill shortages in Australia.  

We're an increasingly technological world, and the economy, and companies, and businesses, really rely on technology as we know in pretty much every field, so we need more experts in ICT, in computing, in engineering, in science, in maths, so we can really support these challenges for the future. 

So, the Women in STEM Ambassador is an Australian government initiative, so I've been in the role over four years to try and drive change so that we can include everyone in STEM, and have a broad range of people lending their skills to the big challenges that we have in the world like climate change, and renewable energy, and creating solutions for that, so that that's what I'm driving at in this role. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

When I first heard the word STEM years ago now, but I went, 'Oh, that's just science and engineering. That's all it is. That's just two kind of industries', but it's so much more than that, isn't it? 

Lisa Harvey-Smith: 

It's absolutely everything. I mean, just look at mining and resources nowadays. Look at how high-tech all of that is. A lot of mines and huge sites like that run remotely now.  

We've got robotics and we've got drones and we've got trains running automatically using AI. We've got all sorts of technology in farming and agriculture. Space technology is actually helping us to run farms now, and to prevent bush fires, and to help monitor climate change, and it's just everywhere. Logistics, how the food gets from distribution centres to the supermarket shelves, all of that is run through computers, through technology, through AI and mathematics. So, pretty much any job you do, even a taxi driver now uses things like Uber and apps and it's high-tech, so you pretty much can't get away with anything in this world without having a bit of technology and engineering science knowledge, so everyone needs it, and increasingly in the world, there's going to be nowhere to hide. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

So, when I was looking at the Women in STEM, the Ambassador website, I was looking through that and then there's links there to the Girls in STEM Toolkit, which I thinks been shortened to the GIST.  

Lisa Harvey-Smith: 

Yeah. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

So, tell me a little bit more about that because when you go into that, there is just so much information on there and I know, as a parent, there's a lot there and for teachers and educators, there's so many resources there that can be used with our kids in school, who might have even just an inkling of interest in these careers and subjects to study. 

Lisa Harvey-Smith: 

Yeah, no, the GIST is a fantastic resource. The Girls in STEM Toolkit. It's funded by the Australian government and it's created by Education Services Australia, and it's just fantastic.  

It's for high school students, so many kids above about the age of 12 would really benefit from that. It shows a lot of role models, and interesting stories about how real people got into STEM careers and showing that STEM careers isn't just scientists in lab coats, and people in universities, and laboratories, and observatories, and that kind of thing, but it's real people working jobs that you might be familiar with.  

It's such a great resource as well for teachers, because it not only gives you ideas, and physical resources that you can use in the classroom, but also hints on how to make classrooms more inclusive. So, how pedagogical practices can be changed and how you can adjust the way that you think about STEM and talk about STEM in the classroom, to try and include everyone, make everyone interested and feel connected to it, so that's really helpful. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

And then there's the Future You website, which I think might be aimed at the primary age. 

Lisa Harvey-Smith: 

That's right, yeah, futureyouaustralia.com. We run that from the Women in STEM Ambassador office, and it's definitely a complementary project, so the Girls in STEM toolkit is for high schools, Future You is for primary, around the age eight to 12, but really that range is a little bit flexible because as we know all young people are different, have different entry points.  

Future You is so exciting, we've created it with a lot of role models, a lot of different pathways into STEM careers. We've got a huge number of resources already, and we're creating more. We've got teachers packs, careers guides, activities, posters, short films called the Pathfinders series, which highlights pathways into STEM careers. It's a little mini-documentary if you will. It follows a particular woman who's gone into a STEM career.  

One example is a heavy vehicle mechanic, something that a lot of people wouldn't necessarily associate with women, but following real people, how they've got into their career, what they do, and how young people might connect to that career, and think about their interests, and how that might lead them into that job. 

So, lots and lots of stuff on there, and the other strand that's interesting is Imagining the Future, so it's a series of short fiction stories, and this is really important because we know that role modelling doesn't just work with real people, it actually works with fiction as well and storytelling, and a lot of kids don't really identify themselves with STEM. So, we're trying to interest people with a cross-curricular approach and get the literacy work that that's really important in schools and introduce STEM stories to that.  

So, the Imagining the Future stories follow these fantastic diverse fictional protagonists as they try and blaze a path in the future towards living humans, living on Callisto, the second-largest moon of Jupiter, solving problems using STEM, and we've created those stories and podcasts so that young people can really engage, and get excited by what the future could hold. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

It's a really fun looking website too. As an adult and a parent, I'm looking at it, going, ‘This is amazing. I can't wait to show my kids’, and it's colouring in and everything, it's so much there. 

Lisa Harvey-Smith: 

All sort of stuff when you're busy as a teacher, and you just want to go and do the word search there, and I've got to cook dinner or something great for parents as well, activities for school holidays and that kind of thing, but really a website that kids can delve into, but as teacher resources, and guided structured classroom activities, also that we provide a lot of guidance for teachers there, but as you say, the look and feel’s really nice. I love it.  

We've got a fantastic producer for the program, Dan Pritchard, and has engaged a load of really great artists and filmmakers. I find a lot of government programs that look a bit daggy, but this one I really quite like, and I can't claim credit for that, but the team who's implemented it is fantastic. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

No, it's very engaging; they've done well. So, when we are looking at the teacher and school side of things, is there anything coming up for 2023 that we should be aware of, or is it just keep checking back on the websites for all the resources? 

‘Lisa Harvey-Smith: 

Yeah, absolutely, so we've got some more funding for this year from the government, which is fantastic, so we are busily creating more resources.  

What that looks like is a series of new short films. We've currently got four short films, and all the associated resources showing a variety of these STEM role models, but we want to create more and more, so we've got a broad range of different jobs and activities and those different parts of STEM, the S T E and the M, and not just showing pathways that require university study, but also those like Louise, our heavy vehicle mechanic who need vocational training pathways, which are very different focus, and I think much more accessible for a lot of kids. 

So, looking at those new resources, they'll be coming out this year, but if you want to keep up to date, we've just got a button on our website, futureyouaustralia.com, and you can just sign up for our newsletter, so you can just keep on top of any new activities.  

We're also going to do competitions as well with great prizes to win, so for schools and for individuals as well, so that you can write your own stories, children can get engaged and create their own imaginings of the future using STEM. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

Wonderful. Well we'll link to all the websites in the show notes so everyone can easily access that, but it sounds amazing and as I said, even if people just jump on and have a look, I'm sure they'll be inspired by one of the websites and some of the resources there, whether you're a parent or a teacher. So, thank you so much for your time, Lisa. 

Lisa Harvey-Smith: 

It's been a great pleasure. Thank you so much. 

Shane Green: 

And that's all for this episode of isPodcast. We hope the young people in your life take part in ISV's Student Poetry competition. We'll leave you with Australian Children Laureate Gabrielle Wang, to explain why. 

Gabrielle Wang: 

My name's Gabrielle Wang and I am a children's author and illustrator. I'm also the Australian children's laureate for 2022 and 2023, which is somebody who travels all over Australia talking about the love of reading, and the love of writing, and the love of story.  

When I was at school, I was a really poor reader, which is probably surprising when you think that I'm a writer myself, but I was a very slow reader, and the books that I loved, when I was young in primary school, were the ones that had illustrations in them, and so that's what I do with my books, because they're the books that I like to read when I was young.  

Probably poetry was one of the first things that I was introduced to as a very young child because my mum would read Winnie the Pooh, and all those little poems, and I just fell in love with poetry. 

Then I think that writing poetry is really good because it's almost like you're reaching into your heart and pulling out the words directly from your heart, because you don't have to have many words with poetry. You don't really have to follow rules.  

I'm going to read you two poems, one rhymes and one doesn't rhyme, but they both have a rhythm.  

I have a little sailing boat.  

It is not a sturdy thing,  

but I'll put up the sail and follow the whale.  

I wonder what adventures she will bring,  

and the second one is,  

To hear her song, look into her eye.  

Where have you been?  

Where are you going? I would ask her.  

What truths, what mysteries of this world can you teach me? 

I think it's wonderful that there's a poetry competition for Victorian students. Entering will give you the experience. The other thing is that by entering, you are giving yourself permission to say, ‘I'm a poet, I'm a writer’.  

Imagination is a muscle, and the more you use it, the stronger it grows, so please enter the competition. It's a fantastic opportunity to exercise your imaginations and your words and the power of story. 

Shane Green: 

isPodcast is brought to you by Independent Schools Victoria. It's produced by Duncan MacLean and presented by Natalie Moutafis, Michael Broadstock, and me, Shane Green. Our podcast theme was composed, performed by Duncan, and there are transcripts of our show with links to what we've discussed at podcast.iseducation.com.au. Please follow us wherever you get your favourite podcast, and while you're there, we'd love it if you could rate and review the show so more people can find us, just like you.