St Mary MacKillop College students dubbed Champions at Science and Engineering Challenge

Students at St Mary MacKillop College won bragging rights at the South West Science and Engineering Challenge last month. The Year 6 students took part in the STEM challenge at the Leschenault Leisure Centre, taking on other South West schools and coming out on top as champion school. Both high school and primary school students were given similar challenges, aiming to grow students’ skills in science, technology, engineering and maths. Quinn Whitty, 11, said in addition to the science, technology, engineering and mahts skills she was able to hone, the challenge taught her broader lessons of commitment and determination. “Building the bridge, going to test it out and needing more adjustments taught me that to succeed, you need to try, try again,” she said. “I also learnt things take hard work, but you need to try hard if you want to succeed.” It was the first time St Mary MacKillop College had taken part in the region-wide challenge, working to design, build and test a range of structures and work with codes and circuits. Facilitating teacher Catherine Christie said there was a sense of “positive, healthy competition and camaraderie” between the schools on the day and the win was simply an added bonus to the fun event. “STEM enables students to develop collaborative and transferable skills that are valued by many industries and individuals,” she said.