A QUT project aiming to improve the learning of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) among primary school students has received funding in the latest round of Australian Research Council (ARC) grants.
Projects investigating issues including protection against air pollution, mitigating the severity of level crossing accidents and unlocking the learning potential of incarcerated young people were among the other research schemes funded as part of the 2015 ARC Major Grants.
QUT had 26 projects funded across the Discovery Projects, Discovery Early Career Researcher Award, Discovery Indigenous and Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities schemes for funding commencing in 2015, totalling $10,420,971. The increase in total funding for these schemes compared to last year was $2.7 million.
Professor Lyn English, from QUT's Faculty of Education, received $603,900 for a four-year Discovery Project Grant, Modelling with data: Advancing STEM in the primary curriculum.
The project, being investigated with researchers from the University of Tasmania, involves a new approach, modelling with data, which aims to develop primary students' capabilities in STEM across grade three to six.
"This new project aligns directly with the Federal Education Minister's calls for educational reform, with its outcomes contributing knowledge on how we can enhance our primary school students' learning in the important STEM disciplines," Professor English said.
"The project also supports the numerous reports from our Chief Scientist, Professor Ian Chubb, and from our industry and business leaders who have been emphasising the urgency to develop our students' STEM capabilities and appreciation of how the STEM disciplines contribute to the betterment of our society.
"It will build on the STEM research I have been conducting in primary and middle schools including engineering education, where students apply their mathematics and science learning to solving real-world, engineering-based problems.
"Students from third grade to the end of sixth grade in Brisbane and Tasmania will undertake investigations involving modelling with data to develop their capacity to make informed choices on complex societal and environmental issues."
The other successful projects to receive funding were:
ARC DISCOVERY PROJECT GRANTS
Professor Margot Brereton - Make and Connect: Enabling People to Connect through their Things - $513,000
Professor Belinda Carpenter - Investigating the Coronial Determination of Suicide as a Category of Death - $157,597
Dr Jenny Ekberg - Understanding how cells in the olfactory nerve prevent brain infection - $346,551
Professor Lyn English - Modelling with data: Advancing STEM in the primary curriculum - $603,900
Dr Kathryn Fairfull-Smith - Nitroxide-containing scaffolds for controlling biofilm-related infections - $445,300
Professor Guy Gable - Towards Engineering Behavioural Research Design Systems - $608,577
Professor Yuantong Gu - A Multiscale Modelling Framework for Mechanical Properties of ECM - $355,100
Professor Aubrey Hurn - Change Detection in Causal Relationships and Measurement of Systemic Risk - $404,700
Associate Professor Marcello La Rosa - Improved Businesss Decision-Making via Liquid Process Model Collections - $847,700
Professor Lidia Morawska - Revolutionising protection against air pollution - $315,778
Dr Matthew Phillips - Geomolecular dating with biologically relaxed clocks, and mammal evolution - $392,700
Professor Jan Recker - Developing a Theory of Green Information Systems - $395,900
Professor Zoran Ristovski - GBR as a significant source of climatically relevant aerosol particles - $263,500
Professor David Thambiratnam - Mitigating the Severity of Level Crossing Accidents and Derailments - $315,500
Professor Shilu Tong - Development of a heatwave definition using the health risk-based metrics - $291,168
Professor Ian Turner - Image-based Multiscale Modelling of Transport Phenomena in Porous Media - $347,100
Associate Professor Annette Woods - Learning to write: A socio-material analysis of text production - $315,100
Associate Professor Cheng Yan - Characterization of mechanical behaviour of TiO2 nanotube thin films - $295,900
Professor Dr Huai-Yong Zhu - A new strategy to enhance the performance of metal catalysts with sunlight - $673,900
ARC DISCOVERY EARLY CAREER RESEARCHER AWARDS
Dr Elliot Carr - Two-scale numerical modelling of coupled transport in heterogeneous media - $312,000
Dr Liangzhi Kou - Exploring A New Family of 2D Heterogeneous Topological Insulator - $330,000
Dr Matthew Mason - Characterising the hazard, structure and impacts of convective wind storms - $375,000
Dr Keerthan Poologanathan - Novel Shelters Using Sheathed Cold-formed Steel Framing Systems - $330,000
Dr Qianqian Yang - New mathematical models for capturing heterogeneity of human brain tissue - $345,000
ARC DISCOVERY INDIGENOUS
Dr Grace Sarra - Unlocking the learning potential of incarcerated young people - $450,000
ARC LINKAGE INFRASTRUCTURE EQUIPMENT AND FACILITIES
Professor Pamela Russell - The Vevo 2100 Micro-ultrasound plus LAZR Photoacoustic Imaging Platform - $390,000
Media contact:
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