News

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.

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).

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

Click here further details

Details available from the VCAA here

ASTA Media Release COVID-19 and Impact on Science Teachers

The Department of Education and Training has published a Learning From Home web page to provide advice to schools about how they can support learning continuity for children and young people during disruption caused by coronavirus (COVID-19) read more

Supporting the teaching of Science in times of remote learning: Highlighting the importance of Laboratory Technicians

With the declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic, the education landscape has become a vastly different space in a staggeringly short amount of time. The roles of all those working in schools have changed, as members of school communities work together to adapt to changing circumstances as they adopt new platforms, methodologies and pedagogies for the delivery of curriculum. As a practical subject, the remote teaching and learning of Science presents unique challenges, most of which are self-evident.

The following is taken from a recent media release of the Australian Science Teachers’ Association on COVID-19, in which ASTA President, Nathan Curnow states: ‘Whilst we celebrate how adaptable and resourceful science teachers can be, it is important to note that these changes have significant ramifications for teacher workload and efficacy as they do their best to support the learning of students’.

STAV Council endorses this statement and furthermore, unreservedly acknowledges the integral and specialist role that laboratory technicians play in enabling effective teaching and learning of the Sciences across all year levels.

STAV’s Mission and goals provide focus at this time:

• STAV represents and advances the collective voice of science educators to shape and influence policy in all aspects of science education.
• STAV aims to build the capacity of laboratory technicians, teachers, science coordinators, principals and system leaders, as agents for the improvement of all aspects of science teaching and learning.
• STAV advocates for and contributes to the improvement of the quality of science teaching andlearning through enhanced professional learning, resources and the promotion of professional best practice.

STAV encourages all members of school science departments to continue to work collaboratively and with agility at this at time. STAV acknowledges that the most visible aspects of the day-to-day role of laboratory technicians is being challenged. In spite of the changes to physical learning spaces, STAV strongly maintains that laboratory technicians are an integral part of the science program. The need for their expertise and support is all the more profound, and with the assistance of technology, the opportunities for innovation abound.

Laboratory technicians in schools are working to different guides in the support of remote learning. They are gathering, preparing and curating resources for science departments; preparing, conducting and recording demonstrations and experiments to be used by students remotely; collecting data via controlled experiments for analysis by students in assessment tasks; maintaining equipment, updating inventories, reforecasting budgets, conducting OH&S audits and maintaining and preparing risk assessment registers.

Laboratory technicians, given the nature of the role, are specialist, resourceful and adaptable. With the extra burden placed on teachers at this time, their support and drive are even more critical to attaining good learning outcomes for our science students. STAV urges schools to continue to foster the time-honoured collaboration and synergy between school Science teachers and laboratory technicians, so that we can better respond to the challenges before us as we navigate these complex times together.

Dale Carroll

STAV Councillor

Chair, Laboratory Technicians sub-committee

Alexandra Abela

STAV President