07 December 2022
In collaboration with the Humanities Faculty and with funding support from the Day Family Foundation, the Service Learning Program launched a social enterprise program in Term 3, called ‘Activate’. This innovative nation-wide program for schools has provided our students with the opportunity to design, develop and launch a social enterprise to address a real-world problem that is important to them. This year the program was run by Ms Ana Christensen as a co-curricular offering on a Wednesday lunchtime in Terms 3 and 4 and was open to students in Years 7 to 12.
Two St Peter’s College teams entered the 2022 Future Anything National Competition (in search of the best student-led enterprises in Australia) out of 200 applications across Australia. Forty teams made it to the semi-finals including one of our teams the ‘Micro-Munchers’. Year 12 students Seb Bower, Bryan Wang, and Lincoln Woodley pitched their brilliant idea of a water drone that would collect microplastics in West Lakes. Although they didn’t make it through to the finals, the boys did a fantastic pitch presentation. Watch the Micro Munchers pitch here.
Despite missing out on the semi-finals, our second team consisting of Austin Liu (Year 11), Tian Wang (Year 9), Marvin Xu (Year 11), Dan Whittaker (Year 9), William Roger (Year 8), Jerry Chen (Year 11) and Derek Yin (Year 11), developed an excellent idea which they are keen to continue working on. Theses students have received funding from the St Peter’s College Social Enterprise Fund to continue building out their concept and testing a prototype for a product that converts air into water.
Thank you to Ms Ana Christensen for providing this opportunity for our students by running the program in its inaugural year. Thank you also to old scholars Tom Walker (HAW 2015) and Ron Beevor (HWD 2015) who mentored and coached our teams with their ideas and pitch preparations.
This immersive, curriculum embedded program has great momentum and engagement and we look forward to continuing to provide this opportunity for our students in 2023.
Ashleigh Day
Service Learning Coordinator