STEM Aboriginal Learner Congress 2025

The CSER Team had the privilege of running workshops again this year at the STEM Aboriginal Learner Congress in Adelaide, a leading national STEM event for Aboriginal children and young people from across South Australia.

The Congress is designed to inspire students to explore STEM through culture, creativity, and innovation. Across two exciting days, young people were invited to engage with STEM learning and industry experiences, while strengthening their cultural identity and exploring pathways into future study and careers.

Bridging Worlds: Identity, Innovation, Leadership

This year’s Congress theme, “Bridging worlds: Identity, innovation, leadership”, celebrated the strength, voice and leadership of Aboriginal learners helping them develop confidence to navigate their way from cultural heritage to career aspirations and from their current position to future goals. The theme encouraged participants not only to cross bridges but to build them—connecting cultural knowledge with STEM principles to create pathways for the future.

CSER Workshop: We Don’t Need a Map - Navigating Country

We were thrilled to contribute to this year’s program by delivering our interactive student workshop, "We Don’t Need a Map: Navigating Country", hosted at the University of Adelaide’s North Terrace Campus.

Over two sessions, lead by Dr Caty Morris (ATSIMA and CSER team member) and Toni Falusi from the CSER STEM PL Team, students explored the power of geographical and mathematical tools, from the features of traditional and contemporary maps to the use of symbols, abbreviations, and spatial reasoning skills.

Using AI and Delightex (formerly CoSpaces), participants designed and created their own 3D landscapes or navigation-inspired images. Drawing on cultural and environmental elements, and with access to a collection of Winyama icons, students personalised their digital spaces to represent journeys, maps, and navigation paths that were meaningful to them.

STEM Creativity on Display

All this took place in less than 90 minutes! We were amazed by the creative design solutions and skills that the students displayed! Their ability to blend culture with digital technology and STEM concepts was truly inspiring. Many of the students were keen to share their designs with the group and take their learning back into school to share with other students and educators. We were proud to play a small part in helping students imagine new pathways where STEM and cultural knowledge come together.

Thank you to the South Australian Department for Education and the wonderful Young Aboriginal STEM Thinkers of South Australia (YASTA) for their hard work in putting on this annual event. 

If you would like to make use of CSER digital technologies equipment, such as the Delightex platform, visit the CSER Lending Library to register your interest in borrowing one of our kits. The CSER National Lending Library is made possible with the support of the Australian Government Department of Education.