ASSOCIATION
ARTICLES NEWS
Welcome your 2019 STANSW Council Members (continued)
Treasurer/Finance Committee Director [also Young Scientist Committee: Professional Learning
Committee.]
Julie Rogers, Lucas Heights Community School
I am the Head of Science and Careers at Lucas Heights Community School, a K-12 DEC school in southern
Sydney near ANSTO. I am fairly new to the STANSW Council, having joined in 2016. Since then I have
undertaken the role of Councillor and then added responsibility as Treasurer for the past 3 years. I lead the
STEM team and Environment and Sustainability Committees at LHCS, and through these I provide PL for staff
and a range of opportunities for students outside of the class envi-ronment. My work role has seen me lead a
small but active team of teachers, and also mentor both new scheme teachers and beginning Head teachers
in the Sutherland area. I have been actively in-volved in HSC Biology marking over the past decade, and I am
passionate about supporting adult learning through professional development and mentoring programs.
I am the daughter of a Dentist, the sister of a biomedical engineer and have been around the scientific community my entire formative
years. These connections led me to seek and develop very close links to ANSTO, the DEC Environmental Education Network and the
Microbiology Society of Australia over my 29-year teaching career, as I strongly encourage industry links in schools and mentoring pro-
grams for both students and staff as a way of inquiry-based learning with a real world application. As an individual I have always valued
being a member of professional organisations such as STANSW as through this membership I collaborate with like-minded colleagues
and build my knowledge and my capacity to lead and teach.
I hope to further build on the strong foundations of STANSW in providing opportunities to bring to-gether our teaching community
from across all sectors and regions of NSW. I wish to help develop and provide professional learning to improve practice, to keep
current with world directions and NESA needs, as well as to build a stronger Association through collegiality, marketing benefits that
have supported my career to our newly appointed colleagues. I hope to help build networks based on shared experience, expertise
and collaboration. I have become more involved since being on Council: presenting at MTM and BEEINS Conferences in 2018 and
19, becoming a Young Scientist Assessor for K-6 science entries in 2018 and 19, and active involvement in the planning of future
conferences via the PL Committee.
Councillor
Susan Filan, Councillor, with Professional Learning Committee portfolio. Abbotsleigh School For Girls
As Head of Environmental Education at Abbotsleigh, I develop curriculum-based environmental edu-cation
experiences on campus, in the local area and at the environment centre in the Senior School, for pre-K through
to Year 12. I am Patron of the school Environment Council and Agriculture Club. In addition to my Environmental
Education role, I teach Stage 6 Earth and Environmental Science. I am passionate about curriculum and have
been an active participant in curriculum consultation for the 7-10 and Stage 6 Science syllabi.
I spent my first month in Australia collecting fossils at Riversleigh with a UNSW team. After that spectacular
introduction to Australia, immigration was inevitable. My first career was in medical re-search. After more than
10 years, I decided to change careers, and trained as a Science teacher. Since then I have worked in public
and independent high schools teaching 7-10 Science, Biology and EES. I started the FIRST robotics program at Abbotsleigh. In my
free time, I volunteer as a pet therapy visi-tor to nursing homes and hospitals.
STANSW has been a major contributor to my professional development, from the Early Career Teacher workshops and 'Meet The
Markers' through to BEEINS and CONASTA. I now present at Meet the Markers (2017, 2018) and BEEINS (2017-2019). After being on
Council in a guest capaci-ty for one year, I was elected to the 2019-2020 Council Board.
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SCIENCE EDUCATIONAL NEWS VOL 68 NO 1