Susan Just, Principal, Lauriston Girls’ School

Susan Just has been principal of Melbourne’s Lauriston Girls’ School for the past seven years. To ensure that its students have access to cutting-edge curriculum, she visited a number of schools in the United States, in order to understand how student learners can better understand fabrication, making and tinkering.

Since that time, Just has entered into an arrangement with associate professor Paulo Blikstein and Stanford University to create a FabLab at Lauriston Girls’ School.

At the current time, there is only one school-based FabLab in the southern hemisphere. In this FabLab, as well as the school’s tinkering studio, students are provided hands-on fabrication experience using 3D printers, a laser cutter and a host of other tools. The FabLab has broad application to a number of curriculum areas and challenges students to conceive of innovative solutions.

Associated with the FabLab are significant professional learning opportunities for teachers from across Australia and the South Pacific. The Educator is told that Australia’s chief scientists, past and present, have an ongoing interest in the FabLab and the learning opportunities it affords.