A team of Year-10 Greek language students at St Monica’s College, Epping in Melbourne’s northern suburbs used aspects of Ancient Greek mythology and learning to complete a STEM (Science, Digital Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) project on the History of Aviation in Greek Mythology which won them first prize in two categories at their school.

The school’s faculty leader of languages and CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) Maryanne Theodosis said the Year-10 students took part in the STEM Aviation project which was conducted in Greek. The students Athanasia Papaconstantinou and Nickolas Karikas won first place in the STEM Showcase for the communication award. James Pougioukas, and Angelos Constantinou won first place in the STEM Showcase for the mathematics award.

“We began this learning journey by introducing students to the history of Aviation in Greek Mythology as the concept of flight stems back to Greek mythology. We learnt about the renowned mythology of Dedalos and Ikaros. From there, the students learned about winged Greek Gods, such as Hermes, Kratos, Nike, the Erotes and Pegasus,” said Ms Theodosis.

READ MORE: Greek teacher who inspires students to reach for the stars honoured on Australia Day

The project participants went on to learn about history of flight from Leonardo da Vinci’s designs to the Wright brothers’ contribution.

“To learn about flight, students also need to learn about the different parts of the airplane and the grammatical structures that accompany this too. Students documented their learning, in pairs as a portfolio online. This meant that both their teacher and students had to learn and navigate a new platform in collating and presenting this information,” said Ms Theodosis. The students returned to school to complete the project.

She added that Greek culture and traditions were rich in themes covered by STEM subjects and were, arguably the foundation of STEM learning: the work of Aristotle and Archimedes had relevance in the development of science, while Archimedes’ inventions were examples of early engineering; the Antikythera Mechanism was the world’s first analogue computer was an early technological contribution; while Euclid Geometry and Pythagoras’ Theorem were relevant to Mathematics.

“My philosophy of teaching languages is wanting to move away from the traditional idea of what languages learning is, inside the classroom, and move towards the concept of students acquiring a language that makes it relevant to the student in their everyday life, not only at school, but also beyond.

READ MORE: World’s first computer was the fusion of finest Greek and Middle Eastern scientific knowledge

“We are a leading school for STEM education in the northern suburbs of Melbourne having won awards at this and in past years … This year we held our inaugural SMC STEM showcase,” she said.

Project participant Angelos Constantinou said: “It was good to use Greek to interpret actions and motions to build the plane. It also allowed us to combine the two worlds of STEM and Greek to help us develop a better understanding of the Greek language.”

Another participant, James Pougioukas said that the project had helped strengthen the students’ Greek vocabulary and ” allows us to use the words, knowledge, and phrases we have learnt through the STEM process from history of aviation to building the planes.”

“In 2022 we will offer two new Year 9 STEM Electives in this new state-of-the-art facility they are STEM Education and STEM Investigation,” said Ms Theodosis.