Bees with Backpacks inspires students to use data

Video credit: Geelong Tech School

Utilising the hive mind

Through Bees with Backpacks, students can follow the trajectory of a single bee or investigate the effects of stress factors for bees in their local area – such as disease, pesticides, diet, air pollution, water contamination, extreme weather and more.

They can create dashboards, visualise data and make connections that CSIRO and local beekeepers might not have made yet. At the end of the program, they come up with solutions using a design thinking process to compete in the Design Challenge.

It’s a multidisciplinary project, teaching students the skills in humanities, data management and visualisation, technology, programming, robotics, marketing and more. That’s saying nothing of the soft skills students pick up along the way, including communication, collaboration, presentation skills, problem-solving and confidence in their ability to innovate.

“Once we take the students through design thinking, that’s when the magic happens,” Director of KIOSC, Dr Kulari Lokuge Dona says.

Last year, students from one of KIOSC’s classes placed second in the Design Challenge with a sophisticated solution designed to protect bees from wind direction changes they’d identified. Ideas like this can actually make a difference to bee populations, and students are encouraged to put them into action if they want.

“Some groups will go on to create a bee-friendly school or home backyard. They are also invited to take it further as a startup or business, but it all depends on if they want to run with it. And sometimes the local beekeepers might want to use the idea,” Kulari adds.

Technology that gets students buzzing

For many students, this is their first exposure to what it would be like to study STEM at university or pursue a science or technology career.

Kulari says, “Some students, like those from low socio-economic status schools, have never had an opportunity like this. It’s very rewarding from the educator’s point of view to see a student like that be able to collaborate in a team, to find a solution to a problem that fascinates them, then to present to a big group of people. It’s a real transformation from that first day.”