She Maps regularly works with universities that want a proven and engaging way to work with schools in their catchments.
Perhaps your university is looking for answers to the following questions:
The origin story of She Maps is that it came out of a university engagement program with Associate Prof. Karen Joyce, at James Cook University. Karen designed and developed the program to engage with local Cairns schools to encourage more girls to consider STEM subjects at school and tertiary study options at JCU.
Since 2017, the She Maps programs have been taught by universities around Australia and the USA, including Duke University, Maryland University in the USA, the University of Tasmania, Central Queensland University, and the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia.
Our partner universities join our Certified Education Partner program and receive Certified Instructor training for those who will be running the school engagement programs, and support to implement the program as part of their engagement activities. Schools that the university works with are also able to access the She Maps online teaching resources to ensure that the engagement does not become a ‘one-hit wonder’!
We understand that university funding cycles are often cyclical and rely on grants to fund certain programs, so we are flexible in our approach to meet your needs.
Let’s look at how we have worked with the University of the Sunshine Coast and Central Queensland University to develop their drone engagement programs.
Our partnership with USC goes back to 2019 when Natalie McMaster, Associate Lecturer in Education, approached us to help provide their education students with some additional Digital Technologies skills. We ran a professional development experience for a group of university students.
Natalie saw the potential for the program and, in 2021, received a National Careers Institute Partnerships Grant to run a larger engagement program with schools across the USC catchment in central and southeast Queensland.
She Maps supported this project in the following ways with the USC team:
Natalie McMaster
Lecturer, Education I School of Education and Tertiary Access
University of Sunshine Coast
Natalie McMaster is an Associate Lecturer in Education coordinating and teaching HPE and Technologies courses in the Bachelor of Early Childhood Education, Bachelor of Primary Education and Masters of Education programs at the University of the Sunshine Coast. She is also a current PhD student with the University of Queensland’s School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences.
Central Queensland University has several campuses from Far North Queensland to Central Queensland. Our partnership started in 2020 with running a teacher PD at the Cairns campus of CQU, and in 2021 at the Gladstone CQU Campus.
In 2021 we also ran a Certified Instructor Program for staff and CQU Connect students (those students who act as school engagement ambassadors) at the Gladstone and Bundaberg campuses.
In 2022, Dr. Michelle Vanderburg, Head of Course – Master of Teaching (Primary), has used the She Maps program to engage schools in her local area, and leveraged the She Maps Lighthouse Schools program for one of these schools to get even more support through an industry funded program. This has also resulted in the development of a unit of work being developed collaboratively between She Maps and the local school, with CQU support, to provide more teaching resources for schools.
Funding for this program with CQU has come from a number of faculties and a community grant that She Maps helped to gain.
Michelle Vanderburg
Senior Lecturer (School of Education and the Arts)
Central Queensland University: Bundaberg, Queensland
Dr. Michelle Avila Vanderburg has a PhD in Language and Literacy. She has experience teaching in primary, secondary, and tertiary education settings. Her research background includes looking at inquiry methods, literacy coaching, teaching effective literacy practices to teachers and Prep-12 students.
If you can see that our program is the right fit for your university, there are probably a few more questions you will have:
She Maps can help you with funding applications, the purchase of equipment, training, and supporting your university to get your program up and running. To arrange a time to speak with the She Maps team, click here.
She Maps is Australia’s leading expert in drone and geospatial education.
She Maps assist schools with the purchasing of drones, school-industry created drone and geospatial teaching resources and highly supportive teacher professional development.
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She Maps aims to bring much needed diversity and support to STEM. We do this by providing drone and geospatial programs to teachers and schools across the globe.
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