The Hutt Valley STEMM festival kicked off last week, with an exciting line-up ready to inspire Kiwis to take notice of what's happening in STEMM and education.

The festival is jam-packed with events focusing on science, technology, engineering, mathematics and manufacturing.

Open Polytechnic decided it was a great opportunity to shout science teachers breakfast.

The ‘Bring your science teacher to breakfast' morning took place last Friday, and gave educators and students in the region a chance to see how they can explore interactive online possibilities.

Coinciding with the massive Techweek 17 lineup, it was a chance to introduce new users to their own platform iQualify and the world of digital learning.

Open Polytechnic executive director Alex MacCreadie says they were excited to start building a relationship with teachers and students.

“Open Polytechnic supports digital learning in the classroom and we were very excited to introduce these resources to the students and teachers this morning.

“I feel it's important to establish relationships between Open Polytechnic, schools and students in our community so we can collaborate and share our vision for enabling effective 21st century learning by supporting teachers to engage with an effective digital medium.

Attendees were given a chance to get hands-on experience with iQualify's online NCEA tools and resources.

Students who came along were given access to an NCEA Science course for an Achievement standard they were studying, allowing them to access that information anytime, anywhere.

Teachers in attendance were offered insights into online learning possibilities and an introduction to the world of flipped classrooms.

MacCreadie says it's important to encourage STEMM subjects and the digital pathways that lead to studying these topics.

“Science is the key to our future. We need more scientists, but we need them to be able to create, collaborate and be digitally literate.

“This is the generation that will need to solve the problems of the past and re-imagine the future.

There's plenty more in store for the Hutt Valley STEMM festival, which runs until Sunday 21 May.

For a list of the remaining STEMM events - Follow the link.