Nancy Fairfax Churchill Fellowship

From January to March this year, I travelled to Germany, the UK, the USA and Jamaica to study "Strategies to get girls interested in science, engineering and technology" on the 2011 Nancy Fairfax Churchill Fellowship.  (I came back to Australia for 2.5 days during my Fellowship to accept the Young Australian of the Year award!)  Upon my return, I had 10 weeks to write a report detailing my findings.

A summary of my major lessons learned:

• Teach through projects that are based on a story that highlights the ‘why’ or the usefulness of the activity to the real world to which girls can relate.
• There needs to be a low entry level and then a quick rate of success.
• Self-confidence in a subject should be tackled before interest in a subject.
• Role models are important, as girls need to be able to visualise themselves as an engineer – include women in the marketing posters.
• Robots should be used to highlight other things like different disciplines of engineering, based on themes or to teach maths or science principles.
• Girls don’t need competition to thrive.  Girls can thrive on collaborative and mission-based tasks that have goals to accomplish and achieve.
• Volunteers should have experience doing the entire course so they are aware of all the challenges that the kids may experience.
• Girls should come out thinking, “It's not rocket-science, and even if it were, no big deal.”

The ideas I got as a result of my Churchill Fellowship are being used to create a new Robogals workshop curriculum and a robust volunteer training programme, a Robogals Club (for girls with the aptitude for SET to further their skills and pursue their interest), and a Robogals Camp.  Using the new curriculum, Robogals will also work on creating a program to train teachers, and other ideas I received as a result of my Churchill Fellowship will be introduced in Robogals over the coming years including family activities and awards programmes.  Finally, relevant findings from my Churchill Fellowship will be integrated into the Robogals SINEs (Seminars Inducting New Executive committee members, the Robogals conference), held annually in each Robogals region, and Robogals’ training manuals.

The Churchill Fellowship gives Australian citizens over the age of 18 years a chance to conduct research overseas in a field that they are passionate about and that would benefit Australia.  Nominations open in November each year, and close at the end of February.  The Churchill Fellowship is an amazing and life-changing opportunity and I would recommend it to anyone!  Find out more information here:  http://www.churchilltrust.com.au/

You can read my full report here:  http://www.churchilltrust.com.au/fellows/detail/3571/