When Prof Susan Scott enters the lecture theatre at the start of each semester, she’s lucky to have two female students enrolled in her general relativity course. Often there are none.
Scott is a gravity researcher at the Australian National University (ANU). She says the profound lack of women studying science, technology, engineering and mathematics (Stem) courses is “disturbing” and has far-reaching repercussions on the workforce.
“It’s completely apparent that there’s a problem occurring in the pipeline coming to us from schools,” Scott says.
“From studies we’ve undertaken with girls from primary to secondary, there’s disengagement with science and physics. They’ve lost interest by the time they get to university.”
In a bid to turn that around, ANU and the University of Western Australia (UWA) on Tuesday launched two national teaching programs they hope will “revolutionise” science education in Australian schools.
The Quantum Girls and Einstein-First programs are the first to invite schools to bring modern physics into primary and secondary classrooms across Australia, drawing on the discoveries of Einstein.
In Einstein-First, kids are introduced to a Stem education curriculum through interactive group activities, including concepts such as black holes, quantum computers and climate science.
The Quantum Girls program expands on Einstein-First and will aim to train 200 female teachers, who will then teach quantum science and quantum computing to girls aged 11 to 15.
Prof David Blair, a researcher at UWA and a pioneer in gravitational wave discovery, began testing Einstein-First in Western Australian schools more than a decade ago. He was frustrated that school curriculums relied upon 19th century physics and that modern concepts such as relativity often weren’t taught until university.
Blair says the success of the program has led to it being offered to schools across the country, having already been replicated by teachers at schools in the US and parts of Europe.
“The theories of Albert Einstein, who revolutionised science in the early 1900s, aren’t too hard for school kids,” Blair says. “Our kids are curious and excited by science.
“This is why we must modernise the curriculum … and teach everyone the language of modern physics, the language of Einstein, starting in primary school.”
UWA has received federal funding for a new course named Einsteinian Physics for Schoolteachers, which will upskill teachers as part of the Einstein-First program.
ANU’s campus was on Tuesday packed with kids testing space-time simulators, throwing marbles on tabletops to replicate black holes and roleplaying as Einstein and Newton.
Johanna Stalley, a teacher at Trinity College in Perth, has been trialling the Einstein-First program with her grade 4, 5 and 6 students. She says resources have been provided to help teachers deliver complex sciences they may not have been trained in.
“We use Nerf guns to hit balloons, representing the momentum of photons to show kids the light spectrum,” she says.
She says the program introduces students to many concepts that are not usually brought up until high school.
“Year 4s are learning about atoms, year 5s are learning about photons and year 6s are learning about climate science and how global warming is occurring,” she says. “It’s complex but it’s engaging and playful.”
Scott hopes the programs will help reverse Australia’s critical skills shortage in Stem, especially among women.
The most recent Australian government data shows girls’ confidence in Stem subjects is generally lower than boys, and falls as they get older. At the same time, women make up only 36% of enrolments in university Stem courses, and just 16% of vocational Stem courses.
And at a managerial level, only 8% of CEOs in Stem-qualified industries are women.
“At the moment our school system is failing us in what we need for the future. We can’t afford to let that happen,” Scott says. “We do have a Stem crisis and our future depends on the Stem workforce.
“Climate science, renewable energy – we will need a lot of people in science and engineering to solve these problems [that are] so important for this generation.”
