STEM-A-Con Wrap-up

Article author: Ms Krystal Gagen-Spriggs

On Friday 26 October, select students of Mount Alvernia were invited to a sleepover in the iCentre called STEM-A-Con. The event was modelled off the Geek-A-Thon event hosted last year, but with a slight difference. Students were invited if they had shown an interested in STEM classes and activities throughout the year.

The girls arrived straight after school and spent a good couple of hours playing with various technologies, including: 3D Printing Pens and code-able robots. At 6pm five of Krystal’s friends outside of school arrived to do a panel called “Women in STEM.” All students that were not invited to sleepover were invited to the panel, and we’re pleased to say that some took the opportunity.

The panel discussed a variety of topics, including:

• How did you get your current job?
• What’s the most fun thing you’ve ever done in your job?
• What bias have you come across in your positions and how did you overcome them?
• Why is it important to you to have more women in STEM fields.

We then opened the panel to questions from the students and we are pleased to say they asked brilliant, thoughtful, and insightful questions. Conversations around the panel lasted long after the guests left.

Thank you to the wonderful women that gave up their Friday night to share their stories and wisdom with our students. We hope that the students that attended had a wonderful time and look forward to more events such as STEM-A-Con in the future!

This article originally featured on Adventures of the Lifting Librarian.