It has been a busy period for the team running the education engagement portfolio.
The principal activity has been related to the scholarship programme which culminated in our annual scholarship awards dinner on the 17th of June. At this dinner we awarded 14 industry sponsored scholarships across various disciplines to the value of $10,000 each, $140,000 in total. Interest in the program has been very strong with over 170 applicants.
Christine Croft has done an excellent job leading this program. Thanks to all of our industry sponsors who have made this possible, it is a valuable support to our undergraduates pursuing a resource related discipline.
Whilst the scholarship program has been front and centre, the Pit to Pixel program has continued throughout the first two terms of the school year. This will end for the participating schools and students when they present their results/projects to a judging panel comprising industry representatives from our sponsors at our Town Hall on the 23rd of June. This will be an exciting event and one which we are very much looking forward to as it will provide an excellent snapshot of the program performance. We need more schools for the second half of the year, if you know of a school that could be interested in adopting Pit to Pixel as the centrepiece of their Digital Technologies curriculum please reach out to Barry Upton, education@waminingclub.asn.au
Another new program this year, our Near Peer program has slowly been building momentum with engagements so far at Kelmscott SHS x2, Trinity and Mercedes Colleges, Holy Cross and Mazenod. High school students get to hear from our past scholarship winners about why they chose their particular career pathways. This is a very powerful influence on high school students given the similarity in ages between our undergraduate scholarship winners and the students.
Finally whilst all this has been going on our next Get in to Mining camp, (14th to 17th July), is in the final stages of organisation with participant selection being finalised in the week ending 19th of June. Our itinerary is locked in with thanks to Tronox as our newest partner who will be hosting visits on the 16th of July across their Southwest operations. Also, thanks to Redpath, Alcoa, Talison Lithium, the WA School of Mines and Byrnecut Mining for stepping up to host our group, and of course this isn’t possible without our sponsors, Regis Resources, Talison Lithium, ATG, MMS, Prok, The Youth Career Counsellor and Atom supplies.
