Professional development

3rd National Little Scientists Early STEM Awards open soon

Freya Lucas

Feb 21, 2022

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Early childhood educators and service providers who are keen to help children to embrace Quirky Curious Futures are invited to showcase their inquiry-based STEM projects, and submit a nomination for the biennial Little Scientists Early STEM Award.

The Award recognises and celebrates early childhood services that have successfully implemented inquiry-based learning and child-led STEM exploration and are open to all Australian early childhood services, and encourage participants to let their imaginations fly by playing with quirky ideas, letting children’s curiosity run wild and empowering them to create their own visions of the future.

“Imagine what our transport and cities could look like, imagine life on a different planet or invent useful gadgets,” a spokesperson for Little Scientists said.

“We are excited to welcome applications from individual educators and teachers for the Outstanding STEM Leader Award for the first time this year. We value the difference these advocates make to the children’s learning and their colleagues’ enthusiasm for STEM and have been celebrating STEM excellence for two years now with our monthly STEM Leader profiles.”

Key datesEntries open: Tuesday, 1 March 2022Entries close: Tuesday, 31 May 2022

The award’s theme, Quirky Curious Futures, encourages participants to let their imagination soar by playing with quirky ideas, letting children’s curiosity run wild and creating their own visions of the future.

“The projects can be focused on a wide variety of topics and we don’t want participants to limit themselves,” a spokesperson said. “For the Outstanding STEM Leader, educators can be nominated by a colleague, a parent or self-nomination is totally acceptable!”

The Little Scientists Early STEM Award is the only national award that focuses on early STEM education and gives educators and their early learning centres a platform to be recognised. For more information or to make a nomination please see here.

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