Hamish-Gibson-awards

[Music plays and images flash through of banks of photographs of teenagers]

 

[Camera zooms in on the photographs and they separate to allow an Australian map and text to be seen: BHP Billiton, Science and Engineering Awards 2017]

 

[Image changes to show Hamish smiling at the camera and then the image changes to show Hamish talking to the camera]

 

Hamish: Hello, my name’s Hamish and I’m lucky enough to be the winner of the BHP Billeton Science and Engineering Teacher Awards. 

 

[Camera zooms in on Hamish’s face talking to the camera]

 

I come from a place in Margaret River, Western Australia and I believe in getting to know my students and sharing their passions and interests and my own and by doing so building strong relationships where we can learn together and I think it all comes down to where we live shapes the way we play. 

 

[Camera zooms out to show Hamish standing on a riverbank talking to the camera]

 

I’m lucky enough to teach a science subject that I studied at university and psychology is my field of expertise.  I think by building those relationships we can come up with authentic tasks that kids are engaged in and that progresses them through their science understanding.  I really feel fortunate to do what I do as a teacher.  I love teaching students and seeing them come up with lots of different ideas and I try and unpack these ideas with my kids so as to field some investigation topics that are going to help in the real world. 

 

[Camera zooms in on Hamish’s face talking to the camera]

 

I started teaching School of the Air in Meekatharra, Western Australia.  This place was famously coined as being “the end of the earth” by one of the wives of one of our Prime Ministers.  Through that journey, I’ve been able to build strong instructional skills.  Throughout that journey I’ve been able to have strong relationships with my students and their families. 

 

I really believe that learning doesn’t only happen in the classroom.  It’s about engaging students in their natural environment and finding out how they can learn through play, through interacting with that environment.  I also strongly believe that sciences are as much about creative thinking as they are analytical thinking and that some of these creative ideas that kids have about the sciences can be expressed in artistic images.  They can be expressed through media and video and some of the technology that the students are going to learn to use and develop in the years to come, come from these creative minds. 

 

[Camera zooms out to show Hamish standing on a riverbank talking to the camera]

 

We need to remember what it’s like to be a kid if we’re going to help those kids learn.  So, that’s what I really believe.  If you can step in the shoes of what a student feels like when they look at an investigation topic and something they’re interested in, then you’re halfway there. 

 

[Camera zooms in on Hamish’s face talking to the camera]

 

Science isn’t only for those students strong in the maths and sciences.  It’s for everybody.  Often, it’s about making that idea of science relevant to the student’s own lives and if they can see the relevance of their science learning in the classroom to a problem they might be able to solve at home then we’re going to see students there really engaging in tasks that we design in a classroom setting.  We’re going to see that learning going beyond their years in secondary school to a tertiary setting.  We may even see some solutions to problems in industry.  We may even see there some different ways to teach science so as to get the best out of our students. 

 

[Camera zooms out to show Hamish standing on a riverbank talking to the camera]

 

There’s always more questions than answers in science and I think it’s important that teachers feel comfortable to say that they don’t know.  Often this might lead to the network of people that come up with STEM ideas that integrate your science learning in the classroom, to technological advancements, to ideas and engineering and use the mathematical skills that students are learning in their maths classrooms. 

 

I see that it’s not isolated to a science, a technology, an engineering or a mathematics course.  It’s more a phenomenon based approach to learning and it’s about making these tasks that the kids are involved in authentic and real and make them applicable to the real world.

 

[Camera zooms in on Hamish’s face talking to the camera]

 

I think it’s important that learning should be fun.  To do that we need to tap into the passions and interests of our students.  To do that we need to share our own passions and interests.  I like to let the students know that I enjoy surfing, that I enjoy collecting wildflowers.  I like to let them know about what I know about my coastal environment with the Leeuwin ocean current.  I like to think that the learning that they have in the science classroom may inform them to make evidence based decisions that are going to help them in their lives.

 

[Music plays and image changes to show an Australian map and text appears: BHP Billiton Science and Engineering Awards 2017]

 

[bhpbilliton Foundation, CSIRO, Australian Science Teachers Association logos and text appears: www.science awards.org.au, #STEMawards 2017]