STAVCON 2022
This years theme is Sparking Ideas: Building connections in Science education
ASTA Policy Position Papers
At the national level ASTA has developed several policy position papers based on feedback from school science educators across Australia. ASTA has regular discussions with Ministers, bureaucrats, and other relevant decision makers to ensure these are addressed.
Below is a list of the current policy position papers. These are reviewed on a timely basis to ensure currency.
STAV will ensure that the members receive regular updates and new policy positions.
Science Talent Search 2022
2022 Theme: Glass: More than meets the eye
For more information about STS including dates, handbook, sponsorship, judging information and exhibition and presentation day, go to the STS website. If you would like a poster to help promote Science Talent Search in your school, contact the STS project officer.
The STS Handbook is now available.
Chemistry videos from Dale Carroll
We are quite lucky to have wonderful people like Dale Carroll on STAV council. At our inaugural STEM/LabTech conference (closing day is October 9th, 2020) he presented a slice of the youtube videos he has been making to support remote learning.
We now offer them to you here, in one handy place. Click the link to the Science links Page, scroll down to get to the heading “Remote learning Chemistry Videos”- to download the word document with the complete list of videos so far, or watch the videos in our browser.
Announcing STAV’s new Patron
Associate Professor Misty Jenkins BSc (Hons), PhD, MAICD
The Science Teachers’ Association of Victoria (STAV) is proud to announce the appointment of Associate Professor Misty Jenkins BSc (Hons), PhD, MAICD, to the honorary role of STAV Patron.
Misty Jenkins is a NHMRC fellow and laboratory head in the Immunology Division at Walter and Eliza Hall Institute for Medical Research, where she researches cellular immunology and cancer immunotherapy.
Misty studied her PhD in Immunology at The University of Melbourne, followed by postdoctoral positions at The Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, and The Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne. She has a long-standing interest in how a specialized group of white blood cells, CD8+ T cells, kill cancer. Her current research program currently researches the use of T cell immunotherapy for brain cancer.
Associate Professor Jenkins was awarded the L’Oreal for Women in Science Fellowship (2013), was Tall Poppy of the year (2015), was awarded the Westpac/Australian Financial Review Top100 Women of Influence award (2016) in recognition for her significant contribution to science and gender equity.
Associate Professor Jenkins has been a strong advocate for diversity and inclusion in academia over the past decade and her efforts in this area have been recognized nationally and internationally. In addition to her research career, Associate Professor Jenkins is experienced in governance and is a Board Director for Monash Health, Co-Chair of the Indigenous Health Medical Research Future Fund.
Misty’s commitment to scientific research, her passion for discovery, her dedication to matters of social justice, and her transformative advocacy work regarding equity of access to the worlds of science and science education are cause for admiration and celebration. For these reasons, Misty’s appointment as STAV Patron is of great significance to STAV and its members.
STAV has a long history of shaping and influencing policy and representing and advancing the collective voice of science teachers across Victoria since 1943. STAV is committed to providing opportunities for all Victorian students of science to become inspired by and engaged with the learning of science and STEM. On behalf of its members, STAV is committed to providing Science education for all and is actively seeking to address the barriers to participation in Science learning including disadvantaged and underrepresented cohorts. STAV acknowledges that Science education is critically important for Australia’s current and future productivity, its social cohesion and that a scientifically literate society is pivotal to building better outcomes for all Australians.
We welcome Misty to the STAV family and look forward to working with her to promote the collective voice of science teachers across the state and to advance science education for all.
Alexandra Abela
STAV President
Former STAV Patrons
STAV has a long history of appointing those of eminence as its Patron. Former STAV Patrons include: Lord Casey (1970-1976), Sir Henry Winneke (1977-1982), Sir Brian Murray (1983-1985), Professor Sir Gustav Nossal (1995-1998), Emeritus Professor Peter Fensham (1999-2001), Professor Suzanne Cory (2005-2007) and Dr Barry Jones (2013-2020).
STAV STEM Ambassador Announced
Meet our 2020 STAV STEM Ambassador – Felicity Furey
We are delighted that Felicity Furey has agreed to be the inaugural STAV STEM Ambassador to support STAV in its mission to represent the collective voice of science and STEM educators in Victoria.
Felicity’s inspiration to forge a career in engineering came from physics teacher. After seeing the lack of diversity in STEM careers, Felicity became passionate about inspiring the next generation into STEM, just like her teacher inspired for her.
Named Boss Magazine’s Young Executive of The Year and one of AFR’s 100 Women of Influence at just 26 years of age, Felicity’s led multi-million dollar engineering projects, founded two successful businesses, Power of Engineering and Machinam which have reached more than 10,000 students, secured partnerships with Qantas, Toyota and Energy Australia.
In this role as STEM Ambassador for STAV Felicity aims to increase advocacy and inspiration for STEM careers and build visibility and drive needed for cultural and social change for gender equity in STEM. Felicity, pictured below, aims to contribute to STAVs high-quality professional learning for teachers and connect industry and the real world into the classroom.
Alexandra Abela
STAV President
STAV Online Member Community
STAV Council met again last week to address how we can support teachers in the emerging online learning space. Including the sharing of the most recent issues of LabTalk and Let’s Find Out through our STAV website, we have prioritised the development of our online presence to better support you, our members, in connecting with each other.
To this end we are about to launch our members only Facebook group for STAV Individual Members
Admittance to this group is through provision of your first and last name and STAV membership number when answering the joining questions. It is hoped this group will become a supportive professional learning community for both Primary, Secondary, Tertiary and Laboratory Technician members.
We will follow this in coming weeks with increased public presence on Twitter and a new STAV Instagram account.
To School Members, access to member services through the usual platforms remains. These include our email groups, bulletins, journals and the STAV Member Only area through the STAV Website.