Work under way on STEM innovation centre at Scots All Saints College

CONSTRUCTION is under way on a new building at Scots All Saints College (SASC) that will give students hands-on experiences in STEM subjects.

There has been a decline in students pursuing STEM subjects, being science, technology, engineering and mathematics, which SASC to reverse with its new innovation centre.

The project was announced for the All Saints Campus in 2019 and Head of College John Weeks said construction was finally able to start in the last month.

“We held off construction because of the coronavirus issues. All of our sites were basically in quarantine, we couldn’t have people coming on site,” he said.

“We held it off and construction has started in the last month, so we’re under construction right now.”

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Builders will remain on site over the summer school holidays to continue construction, with the goal of having the innovation centre ready to use early 2021.

Mr Weeks said staff and students are looking forward to having this resource.

“This is really very exciting because we have not done anything like this before,” he said.

“We’re a new college … now the new college is setting its own distinctive course, selecting the kinds of focus it wants to have in the region, and they see this as being one of the key things that is going to define us as a new college and they can’t wait to get into it and work out how to use it to the best advantage of the students.”

The innovation centre has been designed based off similar facilities in the United States of America and will include four key research laboratories.

Mr Weeks said it will bring together all the things children learn in the individual STEM classes and help them apply those skills in more practical, hands-on ways.

Ideally, it will encourage more students to pursue STEM-related careers.

“The STEM-based movement is worldwide and really is gaining traction, and it all came about because of the decline of interest from young people in the sciences, the maths and the technologies … there’s great concern about that because of all of our industry, all of our inventiveness, innovation is based on those areas,” he said.

The innovation centre will be used by the junior and middle school students on the All Saints’ Campus, however plans are coming together for a similar facility on the Scots Campus, where senior students are based.

Mr Weeks said the first plans have been developed and submitted to government for review.

“We’ve had a very positive response from that and we’re hoping to have that all approved very early next year and to get construction under way very soon after,” he said.

The facility would become available for seniors in 2022.

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