Edutourism pilot takes off at the Precinct

An edu­ca­tion tourism pilot pro­gram, designed to show­case the work of the Precinct part­ners and neigh­bour Geo­science Aus­tralia has been launched at the Desert Knowl­edge Precinct.

Four expe­ri­ences have been devel­oped that take stu­dents on a knowl­edge jour­ney through emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies and Arrernte lan­guage and cul­ture . The expe­ri­ences have been designed by DKA in con­junc­tion with Atria Group, a strat­e­gy and engage­ment con­sul­tan­cy, to share knowl­edge and intro­duce school-aged vis­i­tors to the col­lec­tive work of the Precinct.

1. At the DKA Solar Cen­tre stu­dents learn direct­ly from a renew­able ener­gy engi­neer from Ekisti­ca Pty Ltd about the cut­ting-edge tech­nol­o­gy on the precinct, Alice Springs’ his­to­ry as a solar city and the impor­tance of solar ener­gy to Indige­nous Aus­tralians. Stu­dents then exper­i­ment with solar-pow­ered toys to devel­op an under­stand­ing of the fac­tors that influ­ence solar ener­gy.
2. The sky above Alice Springs is one of the best places to study the earth. Earth Self­ies in a Con­nect­ed World sees stu­dents engage with the role satel­lites play in sci­en­tif­ic imag­ing and data gen­er­a­tion. Work­ing with an instruc­tor from She Flies, each group learns to pilot drones before com­plet­ing chal­lenges that sim­u­late the role of satel­lites in per­form­ing map­ping functions.
3. Shar­ing sto­ries and learn­ing about Arrernte cul­ture is an essen­tial part of the edu­tourism expe­ri­ence at the Desert Knowl­edge Precinct. Facil­i­tat­ed by Deanel­la Mack from Cul­tur­al Con­nec­tions NT with Batch­e­lor Insti­tute, Expe­ri­enc­ing Coun­try and Cul­ture through Art and Sto­ry sees stu­dents learn about the role of icons and sym­bols in paint­ing, to cre­ate a unique piece of art to take home with them.
4. Region­al and remote Aus­tralia is faced with a unique set of chal­lenges and STEAM (Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy, Engi­neer­ing, Arts & Maths) devel­op­ments are essen­tial to the sus­tain­abil­i­ty of remote com­mu­ni­ties. Host­ed by the Cen­tre for Appro­pri­ate Tech­nol­o­gy Ltd, stu­dents part­ner with STEM pro­fes­sion­als in a hackathon-style chal­lenge to design engi­neer­ing solu­tions that address some of the these challenges.