Page 10 - Journal 2018A

caught in the web, and so “microgravity ies” evolved!
I am teaching Year 10s about genetics and evolution this semester, and this has been
a fantastic way to explain the difference between adapting and evolving. The spider adapted – she couldn’t build a decent web to begin with, but eventually adapted to be able to build something similar to what she built on Earth –whereas the ies evolved over several generations. This has helped my students understand these concepts. Also they were interested and engaged as I told them the story and we looked up the experiment on the NASA website to nd pictures of the webs.
Ongoing partnerships
Like a number of the teachers, Matt Jamieson intends to take his class on an excursion
to visit his mentor’s facilities to inspire his students to continue in STEM subjects. Other
teachers recognised the importance of developing working relationships with various space-based industries. They said:
This unique opportunity meant that I was able to interact rst hand with scholars and industry representatives from all around the world
who are working on the latest theories and cutting-edge technology. They were extremely keen to interact and develop formal links and partnerships to assist our endeavour with the Hamilton Space School – Tony Virgo, Hamilton Secondary College
I was able to meet people who I will contact
in the future so that I can use their knowledge and skills to promote space related jobs. I spoke to our students who visited the IAC exhibition on that day and they were surprised how many different companies were on show and the employment opportunities here and overseas - Strat Koultras, Hamilton Secondary College.
The twelve educators were enabled to attend the Congress through a SASTA-ATSE scholarship scheme. Each scholarship provided free Congress registration for the whole week, as well as funding for 2 days release from school. This was made possible by generous support from the Australian Academy of Technology, Science and Engineering (ATSE), the Sir Ross and Sir Keith Smith Fund and the Secondary Learners Directorate of DECD (now the Department for Education).
SASTA would like to thank Emeritus Professor Michael Miller, Institute for Telecommunications Research at University of SA, who had the original concept for the SASTA-ATSE scholarship scheme. Also for suggesting a mentor scheme, as part of which, scholarship recipients were each partnered with a research or industry attendee at the IAC.
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