A fishy tale

A fishy tail - CSIRO STEM Professionals in Schools

[Teachers and STEM professionals on slides on screen smiling, and sharing skills]

[The CSIRO logo swirls into the centre of the screen]

[Text in centre of screen reads STEM Professionals in Schools]

[Shot of the outside of the school]

[Text on screen A fishy tale]

[Shot of a city]

[Ingrid Colman being interviewed in her classroom, text on screen reads Ingrid Colman, Teacher, Lansdowne Crescent PS]

Ingrid Colman: I'm Ingrid Colman and [speaking Indonesian] I'm the Indonesian teacher at Lansdowne Crescent Primary School.

[Ingrid and Craig plan their lesson together in front of a laptop]

We're lucky enough to be partnered with Craig Proctor as our STEM professional.

The children all call him Pa Craig because that's the Indonesian way of saying mister.

[Shot of the outside of the CSIRO Laboratories]

[Craig being interviewed in his office, text beside him reads Craig Proctor, Fisheries Scientist, CSIRO]

Craig Proctor: I work for CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere at the marine laboratories here in Hobart.

[Shot of the inside of the CSIRO Marine Laboratories building concourse]

[A plaque commemorates the opening of the labs]

The thing that I enjoy most about being

[A sign reads Marine National Facility]

a participant in this program is my ongoing relationship with the school.

[Craig and another scientist flipping through a manual at the lab concourse]

Straightaway when they asked me which school would you like to be partnered with I said Lansdowne Crescent Primary please

[A shot of Craig working in his lab dissecting a fish]

because I knew they had Indonesian language on the curriculum. In my career I've been working with Indonesia

[Close-up shots of dissecting the fish and extracting its ear bone]

on their marine fisheries for 8 years at that stage.

Ingrid Colman: Because it's been so successful we've been doing this for almost 10 years. Initially I thought oh, this is great you know? We've got an Indonesian speaking scientist,

[Ingrid and Craig walk through the school as they work on their lesson planning]

but I didn’t realise how good it would be, and how powerful it was for the kids.

[Craig stands up in front of the class presenting material]

Sometimes I'd have kids that weren't so keen on learning Indonesian, but whoa, Craig really inspired them.

Craig Proctor: [Speaking Indonesian]

Students: [Speaking Indonesian]

Craig Proctor: What I hoped to do in all of my visits is to enthuse the kids about marine science. Usually around the theme of sustainable fisheries. So it's around the importance of knowing the age of fish, to fisheries science, to fisheries managers. And also then on to the otoliths, the ear bones from the fish's head

[Close up shot of a diagram of the fish's head titled Otoliths ('ear bones') with oto meaning ear and lithos meaning stone, and pictures pointing out where the otoliths and the sagitta are.]

that we use for aging the fish.

[Craig puts on his lab coat at the front of the class]

[Speaking Indonesian]

[Craig gets out his knife and then puts on his gloves]

Whoa, perfect. With the fish aging class it has that extra spice because I can actually bring along some fish,

[Craig takes the fish out of a bag]

take the otoliths out and show them under the microscope.

[Craig demonstrates the cutting technique for extracting the ear bones]

The reactions of the students vary quite a lot from those that are put off by the sounds of the crunching of the knife in the fish's head.

[A cutting board containing the fish Craig will dissect]

[Craig is cutting into the fish's head and extracting the ear bones]

[Some of the students in the class look shocked. One girl sticks out her tongue]

[Students groan] To those that quite like it and are not taken aback at all. That's one of the things I enjoy most about these visits to the school is getting those different reactions. And also the questions.

[Craig holds the ear bones in some large tweezers and shows them to the students]

They come out with some really cluey, good questions.

[The children applaud]

Ingrid Colman: I think Craig's a great role model for them because they can see what he does is really exciting.

[Ingrid and Craig meeting again to work on lesson plans]

This gives them real life, hands on opportunities. Science is not just some vague concept.

[Ingrid makes a swirly hand gesture over her shoulders to signify vagueness]

They can see the real life application of it.

[Craig prepares the ear bones and places them in dishes to look at under the microscope]

They're getting the science, they're getting the culture, and they're getting the language. It's just great to see.

[Craig places the ear bone in the dish]

[A student is looking through the microscope at the bone]

[Craig and all the students in the class look on]

[The CSIRO logo pops into the centre of the screen, underneath is written Australia's National Science Agency]

[An equation of logos is on the screen with a graduation cap representing teacher, then a plus sign adding it to a STEM professional symbolized by a molecule logo.]

[The equals symbol then connects to a gear logo representing partnership.]

[A circle graph titled Schools with different colours for different percentages on screen, Catholic being 16.3%, Government being 65.8%, Independent/Private being 16.8% and other being 1.1%]

[A map symbolizing national reach with a circle graph to one side. the text under the graph reads "with 29% in regional and remote areas.]

[On the map going clockwise NT 1.5%, QLS 20.8%, NSW 20.9%, ACT 5.9%, TAS 5.2%, VIC 23.9%, SA 8%, WA 13.8%.]

[A graph titled STEM Professionals, the circle graph showing percentages by gender with female at 43.2%, male at 56.6%, and not specified at 0.2%. The text under the graph reads note Female STEM professional representation is significantly higher than the national female STEM qualified population of 17 percent overall asterisk leading to a footnote "from the 2020 program evaluation.]

[Text on centre screen reads The STEM Professionals in Schools project is funded by the Australian Government Department of Education, Skills and Employment. At the bottom of the screen is reads: The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Australian Government Department of Education, Skills and Employment.]

[New Screen text reading STEM Professionals in Schools would like to thank: Ingrid Colman and the students from Lansdowne Crescent Primary School; Craig Proctor, Fisheries Scientist from CSIRO]

[Fades to black]