Five local primary schoolers are helping drive modern education in Griffith, as they take part in an innovative new program.
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The 'Virtual STEM Academy' is training 20 leading year six students from across Australia and New Zealand in how to solve complicated problems relating to science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
For the past month, the selected students from public school's Griffith North, Lake Wyangan, and Tharbogang, attended the weekly virtual class.
On Wednesday, 25 November, the five students came together for the first time as a group, for a class hosted at Murrumbidgee Regional High School.
Within the class, the students, set up with laptops, headsets and microphones, entered a videogame-like program where they could interact with each other and the students from Queensland, the Northern Territory, and New Zealand.
In the program, the students were able to walk around and speak to other students near them in the game. Through this they collaborated to solve complex problems relating to density.
Tharbogang's Emerson Brown said the program so far had been difficult, but also fun, and that it was something she looked forward to every week.
Griffith North student Emma King said she "didn't know that much" about STEM before the program, but it had "really stepped up" her learning.
"It has made me interested in doing more STEM stuff in the future," Emma said.
According to the Director of Education in Griffith, David Lamb, building this interest has been a major aim for the program.
"The business community around here are such innovators with technology," he said.
"Be it the wine industry, the fruit industry, whatever. They're calling out for these type of kids and we're producing them."
"We've got a program that's gonna produce kids that can work in roles that haven't even been created yet."
Principal of Murrumbidgee High, David Crelley, said he hopes the foundation built in programs like this will help Griffith in the future.
"We want to get kids to the point where they can go away to university, and potentially come back with the skills we helped develop from the get-go ... that would be a huge bonus for the town."
Manager of the virtual academy, Ian Preston, is a former teacher in Griffith and the major reason the town was chosen as the site of this program in NSW.
He said plans are already in motion to substantially expand local STEM programs in the future.
"Next year we'll be running another trial in conjunction with this one, which will purely be for kids in NSW and Queensland."
"With that we'll be targeting kids from year five to year ten, from both Murrumbidgee High and it's feeder schools."
The virtual academy is organised by the STEM Industry School Partnership.
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