A team of S5 students from Hillhead High School, Glasgow has won the gold award in the ICE CityZen competition, in which school teams learn about civil engineering by completing virtual game challenges. The competition is designed to inspire the next generation of civil engineers and help students get a taste of civil engineering as a career path.
Hillhead High School students, Carl Hass, Anas Al Aoubaedy, Finlay Hood and Murrad Al Dabbagh worked together to create a plan to improve connectivity between central Glasgow and the city suburbs with a tram line. Their proposed route would connect Glasgow Central Station, various entertainment hot spots, the Queen Elizabeth hospitals and Braehead Shopping centre.
More than 500 students from throughout the UK took part in the competition, and as first place winners, the Hillhead High School team will receive £1,000 and a further £1,000 for their school. The team also won a wave tank, donated by the JBA Trust, which can be used for practical demonstrations in physics and geography teaching.
The team had the support of a civil engineering mentor to get a deeper insight into the industry. ICE STEM Ambassador Mhairi Porteous worked with the students to advise them throughout the process.
The Hillhead High School team said:
“We’re very grateful to take part in this amazing competition and have our suggestion for the wonderful city of Glasgow listened to by the civil engineering industry.
We really enjoyed the weekly challenges and had so much fun filming our project. – we hope our hard work and effort can make a truly positive impact and that this will open up opportunities for us and others in the future.”
The CityZen effect
Now in its second year, the ICE CityZen Award is already having a measurable impact on the students who participate.
Of the 540 students who took part last year, one third said they were interested in civil engineering as a potential course or future career at the beginning of the competition.
By the end of the experience, nearly 80% of students who took part in CityZen said they would consider civil engineering as a career.
