Dear Parents and Guardians,
At Camberwell Girls, we have been investing in a range of educational partnerships with individuals and organisations to assist us in providing real-world learning experiences for our students. At the end of last term, through our bespoke Upskill Program, groups of students were able to engage in some unique opportunities organised by two very different organisations, HEX and Veris.
Staff from Camberwell Girls, along with Jeanette Cheah and her team at HEX, co-designed an opportunity for students from Years 10 and 11 to experience scaling of fundraising for social and community impact. Hosted by the Wade Institute at the University of Melbourne, this was a capstone learning experience for students who completed online HEX@CGGS modules in Money and Tech earlier in the year.
As a school committed to service in action, the agenda for the day focused students on their areas of passion in wellbeing, climate and education. In a supercharged design sprint, these students applied their HEX module learnings to collaborate on a social impact mission to turn $10k into $100k.
Students were inspired by presentations earlier in the day by Rachel Delaney (lawyer and start-up expert), Katarina Throsell (lawyer and venture capitalist at Giant Leap), Maxie Juang (program director at SproutX), and T Guthrie (founder and CEO of WhyHive). The panellists shared their stories about how their traditional university pathways prepared and led them to a range of opportunities, enabling them to discover opportunities in the area of social impact. Their generous insights on strategy for pursuing social and community impact, the importance of democratising data, networking and the power of storytelling were invaluable.
The high level of engagement of our students in this program was evident. Many indicated that they felt a great sense of satisfaction in earning their place in the program, were proud of their final presentations and enjoyed opportunities for applying their learning to significant social impact opportunities.
In another real-world application opportunity, a group of Year 9 and 10 students worked closely with a team from Veris, a leading surveying, digital and spatial planning organisation. An article on this was included in CamNews last term.
In the last few years Camberwell Girls has offered drone programs through our Upskill program that have been supported by some of the team members from Veris. As an extension to these programs, a further Upskill opportunity was offered where our students witnessed first-hand applications of geospatial technology in real world situations at Veris working sites.
Throughout the program day, our students visited different sites and learnt about laser scanning to maximise seating at Margaret Court Arena, how the risk of overshadowing at the Shrine of Remembrance is monitored as well as a range of other applications including how AI is used to locate road defects.
Through both programs it is evident how valuable partnerships are in providing contemporary learning opportunities for students. I am very grateful to our teachers Kate Manners (CGGS HEX liaison) and Karoline Walter (CGGS Veris liaison) who have cultivated these relationships and experiences with the organisations for our Upskill program. There is no doubt that these will continue to be an area of growth in a Camberwell Girls education.
With best wishes,
Debbie Dunwoody
Principal
