Student surveys confirm benefits of FLEET Future electronics unit
Sealing the deal for physics
Surveying and interviews confirm success of elective unit in encouraging girls/other students in physics.
Over the last three years FLEET has helped put around 90 Year-10 students through a ‘Future electronics’ unit, in partnership with John Monash Science School (JMSS).
As well as covering semiconductors, Moore’s Law and computing, the course introduces quantum physics at an intuitive level (with minimal maths) and expands on this fundamental understanding to explain complex, useful quantum states such as superfluids and topological materials.
Surveys confirm that students have enjoyed and been engaged in the topics covered. And that, despite many students finding some topics difficult, they still enjoyed and were interested in the unit.
In addition to students finding the unit interesting and enjoyable, the unit revealed to students a breadth and depth to the discipline of physics that they'd previously been unaware of. Students enjoyed researchers’ raw, unfiltered stories about their research and its application to real-world problems.
The FLEET–JMSS unit affected students’ consideration of physics as a subject in the future. Many students who had not considered physics said the unit may have changed their minds. For the students already planning to do physics, the unit helped reinforce that decision: “I had been tossing up doing physics in VCE over the last couple of weeks and this is kind of sealing the deal for me.”
FLEET presenters helped to develop and deliver the courses, exposing students to a much more diverse cast of physicists than the ‘pale, stale and male’ 19th-century gentlemen whose names and biographies are traditionally taught in physics classes.
Interviews with female students confirmed that the presence of female presenters enabled the students to see a place for themselves in physics.
At my old school, subjects like psychology, physics, biology were more male-dominated subjects, and [it felt like] females shouldn’t be in those subjects. Seeing the female speakers from FLEET inspired me to consider physics, just because I could see now there's a place for females in this field.
Student, JMSS
Surveying and interviews confirm that the involvement of FLEET researchers played a crucial role in student enjoyment and engagement, making physics real, palpable and inclusive. This engagement enabled students to envision multiple opportunities in physics, opening doors to consider new, varied career paths.
FLEET presenters highlighted to students the breadth of opportunity within physics, and discussion of real-world applications helped students realise the value of physics. “There are many components and jobs which compose this field and it really opened my eyes to the many possible job careers.” "Meeting the researchers showed me a career that I could pursue, and after doing this topic I gained a lot of interest in it.”
“Our teachers at JMSS have a lot of expertise in these areas already, but having someone who is currently doing research on this topic gives a deeper insight. It feels like what we're learning is unfiltered.
Student, JMSS
Within the overriding structure of putting FLEET science into context, content taught covered the spectrum from fundamental atomic and quantum physics to applied computing and technology.
This diversity of topics meant that most students were able to find at least a few topics they were really interested in: “It was interesting to cover so many topics not normally talked about in normal classes. I liked the variety of topics we studied, as we learned a small amount of interesting information about each topic.”
The unifying connection of seeking low-energy electronics illustrated for students that fundamental research could work towards a real-world application: “Even though FLEET's research is quite complicated and the field is pretty new, concepts like cold atoms that might seem unrelated to electronics actually play a key role in developing low-energy technology in the future.”
The Future electronics unit will be repeated in 2022. In the next 12 months, more female students will be interviewed to gain a clearer picture of their response.
The FLEET–JMSS unit represents the first time Australian school students have been taught about superfluids and topological materials. With the current focus on Australia’s future quantum workforce, the example of applying quantum science to real-world issues is particularly useful. As is the introduction of semiconductor science to school students.
Surveying found 80–100% of students found the topics interesting, and 80–97% found the topics enjoyable.