Kogarah High School

RESPECTFUL RESPONSIBLE RESILIENT REFLECTIVE

Telephone02 9587 5815

Emailkogarah-h.school@det.nsw.edu.au

Cardboard challenge

On Tuesday October 10, Kogarah High School hosted the inaugural Global Cardboard Challenge.   The Global Cardboard Challenge is an annual event presented by the Imagination Foundation to celebrate child creativity and the role communities can play in fostering it. The Global Cardboard Challenge gives children an opportunity to collaborate, learn, and build the things they imagine through a simple process called Creative Play. The Challenge lets children explore their interests and passions; teaches critical thinking, resourcefulness, perseverance, teamwork and other 21st century skills; and brings communities together to foster and celebrate child creativity.  Since 2012, the Global Cardboard Challenge has had over 750,000 participants from 77 countries. The event involved the year 7 year group and three classes from the local primary school, Kogarah Public School. The day was planned by a teacher interest group (TIG).

The local member of Parliament, The Honourable Mr Chris Minns MP opened the proceedings and made a very interesting speech about how the goals of the Challenge aligns with STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education, future focused learning and future career paths that will inevitably involve skills with technology, coding, problem solving and creative and critical thinking.

The day began with a presentation by the visiting Sichuan Opera Troupe performing a face changing show, a puppet and fire-spitting show, an acrobatic show and Yi ethnic dance. Students were amazed and inspired by the performers, many of whom were close in age to the students. 

After the performance teachers explained the organisation of the day, and a discussion of design principles and a range of cardboard construction examples were presented. Students were presented with the design brief; to build a game using only cardboard, scissors and adhesive tape. The teaching team had collected a large store of cardboard during the year. Students used the first session to assemble teams and collaboratively plan their construction.