South Sydney Rabbitohs Rugby League Football Club, in collaboration with the Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers (AAMT) and LifeJourney have launched a dynamic online maths competition called the South Sydney STEM Cup (click here).

The STEM Cup challenges students from around Australia to use their maths and problem solving skills to allocate salaries to the 2018 South Sydney Rabbitohs player lists within the NRL salary cap.

Students and fans will compete to become the nation’s leading ‘Capologist’ with the chance to win an exclusive behind-the-scenes experience with the Rabbitohs players, coaches and Capologist Peter Legg at one of the Rabbitohs 2018 home matches. The ‘Capologist’ negotiates player contracts, salary figures and ensures the team works within the NRL salary cap guidelines. The Winning Capologists will have salary figures closest to real Rabbitohs Capologist, Peter Legg.

Rabbitohs CEO Blake Solly remarked on the opening of the challenge, “The Rabbitohs are excited to engage students and league fans across Australia through the South Sydney STEM Cup. The role of capologist is critical to our success as an elite sports club. Peter has incredible finance and business background and uses his STEM skills every day to ensure our club is competitive. Our hope for the South Sydney STEM Cup is to inspire more students to keep studying mathematics and the STEM subjects that are necessary to build Australia’s future.”

Mathematical literacy skills in Australia have fallen with the number of students studying Advanced Mathematics declining from 11.9% in 2000 to 9.6% in 2014 (link). Many students are unaware of the number of exciting careers that require a background in mathematics. The STEM Cup highlights three related career pathways in sports finance, data analytics and the Internet of Things (IoT) where maths is fundamental to success.

The Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers is supporting the challenge by sharing the opportunity with its network of teachers and maths proponents. Will Morony, CEO commented “Teachers are looking for opportunities to illustrate real-life applications to mathematics for students. The STEM Cup encourages problem-solving, mathematics and decision making skills which are essential skills for all Australians, especially those working in the STEM fields.”

Participation is free for students, teachers, schools, parents and fans. The South Sydney STEM Cup program is designed for students in Year 7 and above and takes approximately 45 minutes to complete. The program can be run within the classroom with several resources available for teachers, including lesson guides.

The South Sydney STEM Cup is the latest program launched on the Day of STEM platform, powered by LifeJourney, and is the sister program to the Collingwood STEM Cup launched in June 2016. The Day Of STEM is a national initiative designed to raise the National IQ for STEM careers by inspiring the next generation of students through a self guided interactive, online STEM awareness experience called LifeJourney. The fully automated online experience enables students to test-drive their future by living a day in the life of Australia’s STEM leaders.

To learn more about the South Sydney STEM Cup, please visit:
https://dayofstem.com.au/SouthSydneySTEM-Cup.html