Want your school on the cover of School News? Tell us your STEAM initiatives

We run a year 9 and 10 STEAM program at Dunstan High School in Alexandra. We are in our second year of running this course, and the program has morphed a lot over the two years as we figure out how best to engage our students. We started out focusing more on robotics and coding, but have changed to a more practical course as we’ve gone along, as our students are from a rural area and don’t come with a lot of coding experience and this has been a bit offputting for them.
Projects that all students work on have included designing and building catapaults using a laser cutter, and a rocketry module where students work in teams to design, build and launch a rocket. Student choice projects have included building a weatherstation which was then taken over to the local primary school to show new entrants how they can use it to monitor the weather, and 3D printing and building an electric jetboat.
If this sounds like what you are looking for, we’d be happy to chat further.
Just to be clear, I have spearheaded the course and now manage it, but have never taught it. The two teachers who do (Rupert Bromby and Amy Jenkins) would love to be included in a conversation about this.