School of Education

Friday, 01 August 2025

A little rain wasn’t enough to deter over 95 enthusiastic Children’s University (CU) students and family members who attended exciting hands-on July holiday workshops across Edith Cowan University’s Joondalup, Mount Lawley, and South West campuses. The program, designed to make learning aspirational and exciting, offered seven innovative workshops led by passionate ECU academics, staff and student ambassadors from the School of Education, Medical and Health Sciences, Engineering, the University Department of Rural Health – South West (UDRH – SW), as well as external presenters from the Worm Shed and Kingston First Response.

A Healthy Dose of Learning in the South West

At ECU’s South West campus, students had heaps of fun learning about different health sciences with three interactive workshops:

• Hands-on Health Heroes gave aspiring young nurses, paramedics and doctors the basics of paramedic and first aid skills as well as exploring a real-life ambulance from Kingston First Response.
• Food Sustainability: Our Journey to a Healthy Earth took students through a sustainability adventure as they explored where food comes and goes, ways to waste less, live cleaner and how to create an eco-friendly lunchbox.
• Skeletal Central: Building Strong and Healthy Bones offered a bone-rattling good time to CU bone detectives who discovered amazing skeletal facts about ways to build strong healthy bones.

Creativity Takes Centre Stage in Perth

Over at the Perth campuses, imagination ran wild in three inspiring arts-based workshops:

• Unlocking Barcodes: What’s Hidden in the Lines? encouraged future engineers to discover the secret science behind barcodes and how to unlock them, with a fun challenge to test their knowledge.
• Zine Making taught the design and publication of mini-magazines using traditional cut-and-paste creativity.
• Inspirational WA Women Inductees and Crafty Creations encouraged families to explore the touring exhibition currently being hosted at ECU Mount Lawley campus and learn about the incredible and inspiring women whilst created limited-edition commemorative badges to mark this special event.
• Worm Farming Wonders took students on a hands-on wiggly journey to learn about interesting worm facts and how to make a mini worm farm to take home.

The Impact: Learning, Interactions, and Enjoyment

The feedback from students and their families speaks volumes:

“I liked looking in the ambulance and learning the CPR (DRSABC) and putting mum in the recovery position.” (CU child)

“All the health professionals were very happy to be there to teach the children and answer all questions thrown at them. Very informative afternoon for all.” (CU guardian)

“I enjoyed working with my son and helping him solve the barcode to unlock the box.” (CU guardian)

“I liked getting to have lots of fun while still learning!” (CU child)

“The educators were really interactive with the kids.” (CU guardian)

Thanks to Our Partners

A sincere thank you to the ECU staff, academics, and student ambassadors who made this program so impactful. Special appreciation goes to the Australian Government Department of Education and Training’s Higher Education Participation and Partnerships Program (HEPPP), the University Department of Rural Health – South West and Waste Authority for their generous funding and support.

Special thanks also to the WA Women’s Hall of Fame, The Worm Shed and Kingston First Response for the collaboration and giving so generously their time to share resources, knowledge and expertise with our CU families.

To learn more about ECU’s Children’s University program or how to get involved, visit our website or contact us at childrensuniversity@ecu.edu.au.