WITH students returning to the classrooms this week, the Port Adelaide Football Club’s community arm Power Community Limited is revitalising its school-based education programs in 2019 to include more of a focus on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).

As well as integrating STEM into its Power Community Youth Program in primary schools, a new program called POWER OF STEM will run in high schools to help expose the next generation of workers to the endless number of careers possible in the STEM area. 

With many of these careers available during the ship and submarine building which will take place in coming years in the Port Adelaide heartland, the club is focussed on creating an awareness of those opportunities. 

Power of STEM was trialled at Woodville High School in 2018 and is being run in partnership with Naval Group, which is involved in the next generation submarine build at Osborne. 

The program will be run in ten schools in 2019, providing 1,000 year 10 students the opportunity to explore possible career opportunities in the STEM area in South Australia, including in the area of space, with the new Australian Space Agency to be located in the state from mid-2019. 

The Power of STEM program is delivered with PAFC staff, Naval Group staff and other STEM focussed organisations to showcase future job opportunities for your students, many in areas they hadn’t considered to involve STEM including sports science. 

The General Manager of Power Community Limited, Ross Wait described the new program as vital in unearthing the next generation of scientists, mathematicians and engineers. 

“The program is all about whetting students’ appetites about the possibilities and giving them the spark they need to go down the STEM pathway,” he said. 

“We know STEM presents a huge opportunity for our young people and the heartland of the Port Adelaide Football Club so we developed this program with the help of the Naval Group to help students make informed decisions about their personal development, education and training.” 

The program links in with Stage 1 Personal Learning Plan (PLP), and gives students the opportunity to explore pathways in areas such as Sports Science, Analytics, Engineering, Coding, Information Technology, Communication and Digital Media. 

In its 20th year, the Power Community Youth Program is also undergoing a refresh, moving to an online workbook along with in-class lessons. 

With an increased focus on STEM to go with its important messages about healthy lifestyles and respect, part of the program will see students doing sports science tasks like monitoring heartrates, creating graphs and completing coding exercises while Naval Group will also teach them about buoyancy. 

The CEO of Naval Group Australia, John Davis said his organisation was passionate about accelerating STEM education through impactful partnerships, like the one formed with Power Community Limited. 

“The most inspiring STEM learning takes place when students put theory into practice and get hands-on experience with real-world science and engineering tools,” he said. 

“Naval Group has seen this inspiration in action firsthand within our programs across the world and here in Australia through the Community Youth and Power of STEM Programs. 

“Naval Group is proud to help provide STEM experiences to students and inspire the next generation to help Australia maintain and build the skills that will ensure the protection of our national interests and support our future economy.”