Curious Minds

By Year 11 student Gabriella Francis

Curious Minds is a national program that aims to encourage and support girls in grades 9-11 in the field of STEM. After an online camp in December 2022, and a six-month STEM coaching program, during the second week of the holidays where Year 10 DHS student Matilda Crowe and I were able to attend the Curious Minds camp in Adelaide.

Each day of the camp we went to the University of Adelaide, where we participated in supercharge sessions exploring areas of STEM (Physics, Chemistry, Earth and Environmental Science, Engineering, Maths, Digital Technology, and Biology). We learned a lot from experts and inspiring women in STEM, participated in a range of interesting and exciting experiments, and explored complex problem-solving questions with a group of like-minded students. We were also fortunate to go on excursions to the Museum of Discovery, and the Australian Space Discovery Centre, and have the opportunity to make friends with the other students from several other states.

Further, one of the sessions was dedicated to the presentation of each student’s STEM journey exploration. During the six-month STEM coaching program, in pairs or as individuals, each student created a presentation exploring a STEM field they were interested in. It was amazing to learn from a wide variety of different STEM projects that other students investigated.

Overall, the Curious Minds program was an incredible opportunity, that was hugely inspiring, encouraging, and educational.