Science and Engineering Challenge

The Science and Engineering Challenge is a major success story in what has become a depressing history of STEM participation in Australia.

      For a very long time now enrolments in engineering at the University of Newcastle had been falling and in the year 2000 the Engineering faculty decided to do something about it.     In combination with the Rotary Club of Gosford put on the very first Science and Engineering Challenge and it has grown every year since then.

      Now it is an event with participation from every rotary club on the Central Coast, all 14 of us.    Rotary clubs provide the bulk of the finance, nearly all the volunteers, while the Uof N do the hard yards of inventing the challenges, supplying the materials and providing a core group of well qualified professional educators.

     Almost 480 of the best year 9 and 10 students will thoroughly enjoy the event again this year with the winning school going on to a state final and eventually a national final.

Dr Chris Hendry will speak to Gosford Rotary on April 27 to update us on what is now a 17 year success story of encouraging participation in Science, Technology,Engineering and Maths....a rare event in Australia.

       Feel free to come along and challenge yourself, and hear Chris' update on rates of participation in STEM subjects.           Contact us for dinner arrangements.