GeoSTEM: 'The Urban Mess' Interdisciplinary Learning in a Project-Based Learning High School Environment

Parramatta Marist High School is a school in Western Sydney, New South Wales, that has over 14 years of experience in project-based learning in Stages 4 and 5 (Years 7-10). Over this period, projects have been constantly developed, redeveloped and improved by teachers based on their experience and feedback from their colleagues and their students. Growing out of this feedback cycle, GeoSTEM (an integration of geography and STEM) was formed to utilise complementary skills and concepts from both subjects in order to develop projects that better engage and reflect student learning in the 21st Century. In 2019, the first GeoSTEM project titled "The Urban Mess" was delivered to Year 9. This project focused on issues of urbanisation, sustainability and design within a local context, through the lens of the Stage 5 Changing Places unit. Through computer-aided design and fabrication, local geographical issues were exposed and resolutions proposed with the final products utilising laser-cut overlay maps to represent the various solutions.