Winners of 2024 Little Scientists Awards announced

The winners of the 2024 Little Scientists Awards have been announced, with Little Scientists’ Project Director Emma McGarrity saying the quality of nominations this year was “exceptional.”

“Nominations came in from nearly every corner of the country, with children’s projects exploring topics as diverse as ropes, beehives, tallies to track emotions, parkour, and much more,” she shared.

“Early STEM education is still a relatively new concept in Australia. We’d love to see a greater investment in early STEM education at all levels of government so that early childhood educators are better supported to offer STEM education to children in their earliest years.”

“Early STEM education is critical for young children’s development. When children are exposed to rich STEM learning experiences from infancy, they develop stronger STEM skills, like critical thinking, problem solving, and creativity, and have improved education outcomes well into high school,” Ms McGarrity added.

The theme of the 2024 awards, ‘overcoming gender bias in early STEM education’, recognises the critical role early childhood educators and teachers play in overcoming gender stereotypes and implicit gender biases that impact young girl’s participation in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education.

Federal Minister for Early Childhood Education Dr Anne Aly congratulated the national and state and territory winners saying “I congratulate all the outstanding winners and encourage early learning educators and teachers to continue finding fun ways to introduce children to STEM subjects.”

“This year’s theme is incredibly important,” she continued. 

“We know that by six, a girl’s interest and confidence in STEM education is already being negatively impacted by gender stereotypes and implicit gender biases. We want girls and women to have the same opportunities to participate, enjoy and succeed in STEM fields throughout their lives, just as their male counterparts do.”

The Awards recognise the work of early childhood educators, teachers and services, celebrating their fun and engaging approaches to STEM education in early learning.

Bagdad Education and Care in Tasmania received the national Excellence in Early STEM Education Award, for the project Will the ropes break under our weight? where children experimented with ropes, physics, and motion to develop and test hypotheses around the properties of ropes and how to strengthen them.

The National Outstanding Early STEM Education Leader went to Esther Christian from Seedlings & Co Calamvale in Queensland for a wind and flight project that gave children the opportunity to make and test paper planes, explore wind with windsocks, visit the local airport and meet real pilots.

Other winners are as follows: 

• Winyu Early Childhood Service (ACT) Light Explorers 
• Spotted Frog Kindergarten (NSW) The Mighty Mathematicians 
• Bambini’s Childcare Centre (Centennial Park NSW) Do bees have homes, and what do they do inside? 
• Kozy Kids Childcare Glenside (SA) How to build a rocket big enough for us all? 
• FROEBEL Carlton Early Learning Service (VIC) Blue! It sounds blue!
• Moerlina School (WA) What is Parkour? 

Winners of the Outstanding Early STEM Education Leader Award were: 

• ACT: Wendy Rodriguez Melo, Early Childhood Teacher, Winyu Early Childhood Service 
• NSW: Yuji Ono, Educational Leader, FROEBEL St Leonards
• VIC: Laura Cetina, Educational Leader, FROEBEL Carlton 
• VIC: Rebecca Drysdale, Early Childhood Teacher, Lowther Hall Anglican Grammar School
• WA: Lynn McDonald, Early Childhood Teacher, Moerlina School
• WA: Olivia Harnwell, Pre-Kindergarten Teacher, Iona Presentation School

The Sector extends its congratulations to all award winners. Learn more about Little Scientists here.