May 18, 2012
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St. Andrew’s & St. Bride’s Celebrate Energy Challenge Win

Go4SET is a UK wide educational programme allowing secondary school pupils to work with organisations to address issues of sustainability and engineering/science awareness.

School teams from across Lanarkshire took part in the Go4SET Celebration and Assessment Day (CAD) on Friday 10^th May showcasing their projects to judges and guests as well as competing for a number of awards. The event, hosted by South Lanarkshire Council in the Almada Suite Banqueting Hall was a great success and the judges selected St Andrew’s & St Bride’s High School as the winner of the Best Overall Project Award for their outstanding work on the use of biomass as a source of renewable energy

The team were presented with a trophy and a cheque for £250 by Martin Grey from Viridor and they will now go forward to the Go4SET Scottish Final which will be held in the Scottish Parliament on Friday 18^th May.

Linda Fabiani MSP for East Kilbride commented ““I am so looking forward to the final on Friday and welcoming St Andrew’s and St Bride’s pupils to the Parliament – they are a credit to East Kilbride and Lanarkshire. Go4Set is a great project and well done to the school and to DTA Architects for having the vision to participate in such an interesting competition.”

The CAD awards were sponsored by Viridor and Martin Grey, Scottish Communications Manager commented; from wind farms to waste management, how we create a sustainable Scotland is rightly the subject of intense debate. As Scotland’s leading recycling, renewable energy and sustainable waste partner working with 96% of local authorities that is a debate we are keen to encourage. It’s for that reason we are delighted to support the Go4SET programme across Scotland, challenging young people to think about their environment and future. “Like Viridor, young people are committed to their environment and conscious of how they utilise resources. The standard of entries was again very high and I congratulate the young people on their work. With talented young people like those who took part today, Scotland’s future is sure to be bright.”

St Andrew’s and St Bride’s were supported by South Lanarkshire Council and DTA Architects during the project and their mentor John Devlin – Director at DTA Architects commented “Everyone at DTA would like to congratulate the team on their success. The determination with which they went about this year’s challenge was inspiring and they exhibited a real willingness to work as a team and support each other. It has been a real pleasure working with them and the staff at St Andrews and St Brides school and I’m now looking forward to next year’s challenge.’

The other award winners at the event were Bellshill Academy Team 3 supported by NG Bailey who won the Innovation Award and a cheque for £200, Holy Cross High School supported by South Lanarkshire Council who won the Best Team Work Award and a cheque for £150 and Dalziel High School supported by TATA Steel who won the Students Choice Award and a cheque for £100.

The Go4SET biomass project began at the launch event in November 2011 and the teams of six 12 to 14 year olds (S2) continued to work with their teacher and mentors from industry on the challenging 10-week project. They were tasked to research a biomass fuelled renewable electricity and heat plant for their school and provide a written report on their findings, produce a model and display these at the celebration event.

Duncan McSporran, EDT Director for Scotland commented “This dynamic and innovative curriculum based programme has proved to significantly change the perception of young people on careers and opportunities within science and engineering industries.”

May 12, 2012
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STEM Central and Water

A clean safe water supply is vital to life and health and flooding can cause damage and disruption to communities. The STEM Central water context deals with the work of civil engineers who conceive, design, plan, construct and maintain all the infrastructure for water, waste water and flood protection.

If you are looking for partnership working to enhance learning and teaching associated with water, why not take a look at the work of The James Hutton Institute? In April, primary four learners at Wormit Primary School in Fife explored water from a new perspective – how much water is needed to make a plate of beans on toast?

Research work from The James Hutton Institute ties in with learning in sciences at all levels within the Curriculum for Excellence including new National Qualifications in Biology, Environmental Science, Physics and Science.

May 12, 2012
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STEM Central and The James Hutton Institute: Water Works

An update on The James Hutton Institute’s Water Works competition with the announcement of the April winner. The April winner is Aimee Holton, aged 16, from Banchory Academy with her picture “Droplets”. Aimee says “You don’t realise how precious water is until you see things like the hosepipe ban in England. It makes us appreciate every last droplet even more”.

This exciting competition could be used in many contexts, including to enrich the STEM Central water context. Details of the competition can be found on this blog, or in the competition details. Closing date is the 22nd of each month.

May 5, 2012
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STEM Central and The James Hutton Institute: Water Works

On 10th February we blogged about this exciting opportunity which can be used in many contexts, including to enrich the STEM Central water context.

A trickling burn, a flooded street, a horse’s trough or a grand Scottish loch – no matter what comes to mind when you think of water the Water Works competition wants your photographs. The James Hutton Institute has now announced the March winner of the competition, John Smith, Age 8, from Orkney. His picture, shown above, is called “The Flood at the Pumping Station” and shows his local pumping station at North Stronsay, flooded due to the nearby loch overflowing.

The James Hutton Institute’s Facebook page has more information on the March entries and how you can take part in May’s competition.

Need some more inspiration on water?

Whether you are working with the STEM Central Flood Management learning journeys in the context of social sciences, technologies or maths, or planning learning and teaching around themes of sustainability for new National Qualifications, this article published in The Telegraph, by James Dyson “Engineering can save us from drought” might provide information or inspiration. Perhaps you could use this year’s Dyson Challenge as a basis for learning, maybe your learners hold the key to saving water for a more sustainable future?

If your learners are considering the current drought and flood situation in large parts of England, why not use it as an opportunity to explore the role of engineers in sustainability? We would love to hear your ideas on our STEM Central in Motion blog.

Or try using the mindmap tool in Glow Science to kickstart thinking for you or your learners.

The James Hutton Institute via the Centre of Expertise for Waters are running a year long competition aimed at raising awareness of water and water-related issues across both primary and secondary ages. The competition, with monthly prizes, aims to encourage learners to think about the natural environment and make the link between CfE curriculum areas Sciences, Technologies and Expressive Arts. The competition page gives background on the competition and entry instructions.

April 26, 2012
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Scottish Pupils Showcase their Innovative Engineering Projects

Young engineering talent from secondary schools in Scotland showcased their projects at Strathclyde University on the 23^rd April at the EES Celebration and Assessment Day (CAD).

Teams each of four S5/S6 pupils have been working on sophisticated engineering projects with local companies as part of the EES programme run by the Engineering Development Trust (EDT). The culmination of their projects is a “Celebration and Assessment Day” where the teams were assessed and presented with certificates acknowledging their success in the programme.

In addition to this Merchiston Castle School, Edinburgh, who partnered The University of Edinburgh, were presented with the EES Trophy and a cheque for £250 as the ‘Overall Winning Team’ for their outstanding project results. Their project set for them by the university, was to develop a system to control and receive feedback from a bionic hand, utilise and design an interface that will interact with the human body.

Dr Andrew Firth, Schools Liaison Officer at the University of Edinburgh mentored the team and commented “The team from Merchiston Castle School deserve the highest praise for their work. We presented them with a very challenging project and to produce a working prototype, as they have, is exceptional. This is engineering at its very best.

Trinity High School, Renfrew partnered with Rolls-Royce plc won the runner-up award of £100, donated by Salesjigsaw and presented by George Foster.

Companies supporting the schools and providing the projects were Aggreko Manufacturing, BOC Ltd, ClydeUnion Pumps, Coherent Scotland, Doosan Power Systems, EDF Energy, Heriot-Watt University, Howden, Rolls-Royce plc, Selex Galileo, University of Edinburgh and University of Strathclyde.

Peter Jamieson Senior Principal Engineer at Garrad Hassan was one of the assessors at the event and commented “It was refreshing and inspiring to see what all these young potential engineers had been up to and I felt privileged to have been involved”.

The Engineering Education Scheme enables a team of students to work on an engineering project devised by their partner company. The project will be of real value to the company and the student engineers have the experience of tackling the project in an industry environment. The project takes place over 6 months and involves over 100 hours of work per student including a 2 day period of research and development at a local university.

The Department of Electronic & Electrical Engineering at the University of Strathclyde supported the EES in Scotland by hosting the Launch, Workshop and CAD events.

Duncan McSporran Director of the Engineering Development Trust Scotland said, “The quality of the school teams presenting shows the strength of the scheme. It has a defining role in enabling students to take the step from engineering as an interesting idea to a firm career option. The participating companies keep their eyes open for talented students and more than a few EES students have finished up working with the company they partnered on their EES project.”

April 5, 2012
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World of Work Wednesdays – Working in Science

Wednesday 9th May at 2pm

You don’t have to do the traditional route of University, then PhD to have a career in science. It often seems like the kind of job you’d have to spend years and years qualifying and training for. Well, this is not always the case. Young people, some not long out of school, are working in science right now and you could be too.

Science is part of our everyday life and Life Sciences are particularly important, with stories on the news nearly every week telling us about new medical technologies and treatments for diseases.

Science requires individuals with many skills and interests – and not all scientists work in a laboratory. The panel for this session al have different jobs and their qualifications, training and experiences are varied.

With Life Sciences, you are already at an advantage when it comes to job searching, as Scotland is regarded as one of the most successful countries in the world. The Scottish Government have made Life Sciences a Key priority Industry, which means that they see it as a means of us expanding our economy in the future. The industry has roles in sales, business development, research, clinical trials and many more.

Click here to sign up to the event (Glow log in required).

March 13, 2012
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STEM Central Bioengineering and the BBC’s Bionics Series

Just at the right time for the publication of our latest context on STEM Central – Bioengineering – the BBC has a fantastic series of articles, images interactives and video clips which could be used to enrich the context.

March 13, 2012
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Comments Off on BEd3 at UWS Ayr Investigate STEM Central

BEd3 at UWS Ayr Investigate STEM Central

Today I visited the University of the West of Scotland (UWS) in Ayr to complete Technologies workshops with BEd3. We began by discussing the misconceptions surrounding Technologies within Curriculum for Excellence, and spent the rest of the time looking at draft second level learning journeys for STEM Central. The students thought the website was easy to use, and the ideas on the website made it easy to plan a lesson.

You can find the presentation here. (Glow log in required)

We ended by looking at some of the other resources available from Education Scotland to help with teaching Technologies:

STEM Central in Motion

Technologies Staffroom (Glow log in required)

Glow Science (Glow log in required)

Technologies area of the website

Exploring Climate Change

Weather and Climate Change

Working in the Energy Sector

March 11, 2012
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Teaching Polymeric Biomaterials?

The new STEM Central Context on Bioengineering allows practitioners and learners to explore Polymeric biomaterials. The polymeric biomaterials learning journey has a Sciences focus, aimed at fourth Level.

The Plastics and Polymers video available through Glow Science (Glow log in required) will allow learners to explore how plastics are all made in a similar way, but can be manipulated to have very different functions and discover how their properties are determined.