MaD Science is an interest elective class created by teacher Jivvel Kilham. It focusses on materials and design through science and engineering topics. The class is mainly aimed at students who are otherwise not that excited about school or learning.

At January’s Awesome Newcastle event Kilham expressed his passion for his students and desire to build their confidence and interest in maths and science.

He spoke of how the $1,000 cash grant would go towards funding the purchase of more equipment to accommodate the classes growing numbers.

In a very close competition against two other worthy applicants, Kilham won on the night.

We touched base with him recently to see how the elective class was travelling since the win.

Kilham reported back that since Awesome Newcastle, he has been able to accommodate 60 students from Callaghan College Wallsend this term in the MaD Science course. He also informed us of the other good news.

“In addition to accommodating 60 students, a teacher from Kotara has also run MaD Science for the first time and is about to run it again for second semester”. Kilham says.

“My Callaghan students also travelled to the University of Newcastle to work with the School of Architecture on designing and investigating eco-housing”.

The awesome update does not stop there! Kilham’s students also competed in the annual ME Build Me a Future day where they placed second out of the schools that attended on the day. Go guys!

It doesn’t sound like things will stop progressing anytime soon either, with Kilham telling us that another 30 Callaghan students have just began their MaD Science journey.

Awesome Newcastle are stoked to be a part of building a passion to learn in students at two local schools.