Professional development

Services and educators now have an opportunity to be recognised for excellence in early STEM

Freya Lucas

Mar 28, 2022

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Early childhood education and care (ECEC) services and individual educators who would like recognition for their work with inquiry based science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) are being invited to submit their early STEM projects for a chance to be recognised as leaders in early STEM education in the biennial Little Scientists Early STEM Award.

Little Scientists are looking for Australia’s most outstanding STEM educator, with the awards recognising and celebrating early childhood services who have successfully implemented inquiry-based learning and child-led STEM exploration. The award is open to all Australian early childhood services who wish to showcase their inquiry-based STEM project and nominate the educator in their service who advocates for STEM.

Entering the Awards is simple.

STEP 1

Complete the submission form and choose the most applicable category. Submissions can be made until 31 May 2022.

STEP 2

Complete the entry form, selecting one of the two categories:

Early STEM Award: submit one project to showcase the implementation of inquiry-based STEM. Include the children’s ideas, investigations, discoveries and approach in the entry form.

Outstanding STEM Leader: entrants can (self-)nominate an individual educator who has demonstrated a passion for STEM and is integrating inquiry-based, child-led STEM learning in their daily practice.

STEP 3

Submit the completed entry and don’t forget to include supporting photos and documentation. The more descriptive the entry, the easier it is for the expert panel to judge the quality and depth of the project.

Key dates:

Entries opened: Tuesday, 1 March 2022
Entries close: Tuesday, 31 May 2022
Winners informed: late July 2022
Award ceremonies: August 2022 in celebration of National Science Week

Every submission will receive an Educator Appreciation gift valued at $115 containing a Mud Kitchen resource voucher ($25) and a Little Scientists online workshop voucher ($90). The overall prize pool is worth more than $11,000.

For more information on the Awards please see here.

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