Sarah Chapman
Townsville State High School, QLD
Teaching Fellow
Sarah Chapman’s passion for science education is infectious. With her team, she has built Townsville State High School into a magnet for parents and students who want to be prepared for jobs of the future – jobs which may not yet exist but will certainly require technical skills and scientific reasoning.
Sarah creates connections with other schools, universities, professional bodies and the media to advocate for high quality science teaching, and she is bringing the community along on the mission. The Townsville STEM Hub of 25 local organisations, which she initiated, presents events and competitions to an enthusiastic local audience.
She is also one of 10 inaugural Science and Technology Australia’s STEM ambassadors and she uses this platform to provide an educator’s perspective on influencing policy and the national STEM agenda.
Throughout this demanding schedule she has remained a committed classroom teacher as Head of Science, and students have clearly caught her inspiration. When she arrived at the school in 2004, barely 15 per cent of leavers chose a science-related course; now 74 per cent do so.