stephmartin | Engineering Our Future

UWE and Aerospace Bristol host local schools for a free STEM day trip!

stephmartin | 27 October 20221 November 2022

The DETI Inspire team at UWE Bristol are collaborating with Air League, the UK’s leading aviation and aerospace charity, who are generously supporting the free delivery of Aerospace Engineering days out for 16 classes from schools in the South West. So far, 243 kids have experienced Bristol’s excellent aviation history at Aerospace Bristol, before streaming into UWE’s new School of Engineering building to explore the future of sustainable flight using a virtual gaming platform.

This new scheme is part of Air League’s continuing mission to inspire young people to pursue a career in aviation. They’ve been able to offer this amazing opportunity for local schools by partnering up with Aston Martin Bristol, who are funding the delivery of Air League’s Inspired Engineering initiative for 2022. This funding has enabled Air League to offer the free day out, as they are paying for transportation costs, entry into Aerospace Bristol and a bespoke workshop at UWE Bristol, all at no cost to the schools.

Throughout the day, different careers relating to the aerospace industry are discussed to give students a flavour of what a future career could look like. The goal is to inspire children from all different backgrounds to start thinking about careers in STEM, particularly engineering, and give them an idea of the future roles they can hold. The initiative also aims to emphasise the green skills that they will need in the sustainable workforce of the future.

Josh Warren from the DETI Inspire running an AirLeague funded Minecraft session on the future of flight in UWE Engineering’s dedicated outreach classroom

The DETI Inspire team used their regional links to recruit primary schools to the programme, with Air League organising all transportation for classes, including the transfer between Aerospace Bristol and UWE Bristol’s Frenchay campus halfway through the day. Coach costs often prohibit schools from arranging trips out for their pupils, even to relatively local educational destinations, so this funding has been really appreciated by schools, particularly those from areas of socio-economic deprivation who have been a priority to secure sessions for.

Each trip begins with a visit to Aerospace Bristol to explore the history of air travel and aerospace design. The children get to explore the amazing exhibits, with a frequently reported favourite being a tour inside a Concorde aircraft!

This is then followed by a visit to UWE’s School of Engineering, where students explore the future of flight on the popular game, Minecraft. The kids enter the virtual Filton runway, built by DETI Inspire collaborator Atkins, where they are encouraged to let their imaginations run wild to think up ways in which air travel can become more sustainable.

The young people have used Minecraft to digitally engineer biofuel stations for planes, where the crops used are grown on site; as well as prototypes for solar powered planes and flying electric cars!

Two examples of KS2 pupil designs in the Filton Minecraft world – an aeroplane with solar panels and a biofuel station

The programme has been extremely popular, with every session booked out by mid-October. While the children’s enthusiasm speaks for itself throughout the day, there’s also been fantastic feedback from teachers:

“We would like to say a huge thank you for this opportunity. It was a fantastic day and the children were really excited by all that they got to do!”

“Overall, a fantastic opportunity for the children and one they would not get often.”

We have received a lot of enquiries from schools who would love to participate in our aerospace days out, so we are hoping to continue this initiative into 2023 to reach more students in the South West and inspire them into careers in STEM.

DETI Inspire use the West in Minecraft and subsequent worlds developed with the support of Atkins, a member of the SNC-Lavalin Group, and Science Hunters through Building to Break Barriers (funded by a Royal Academy of Engineering Ingenious grant)

Join Us at our Green Skills Fayres in the South West!

stephmartin | 14 October 202227 October 2022

What are Green Skills Fayres?

The Inspire Sustainability team at UWE Engineering have organised several Green Skills Fayres to take place at three schools in the South West on the 24th and 30th of November, and 2nd of December. We are looking for people working in green jobs to join us in inspiring secondary school-aged students (11-16) at Hans Price Academy in Weston-Super-Mare, Bristol Brunel Academy in Speedwell, and Digitech Studio School in Warmley. We want to inspire young people to develop green skills that they can take with them into their future careers.

What are the Green Skills Fayres?

Anyone in a green job will have the opportunity to discuss how your work contributes to sustainability, the green skills that you’ve developed, and how you apply these to your job. You will be provided with a table to display items relevant to your job to engage young people and spark conversations. STEM ambassadors are also encouraged to bring along any promotional material and invite students to visit your place of work in future if possible. Afterwards, groups of students will have the opportunity to share the green skills and careers that most interest them and how they could develop these.

Woman writing the word career on a wall while standing on a step containing educational graphics.

We are particularly interested in hearing from people who either work in the fields of or have green skills related to climate science, decarbonisation, and climate adaptation. Green skills are skills that are needed to support a sustainable society and are, therefore, broad. These could include skills relating to research, technical aspects, operational management, and monitoring, as well as soft skills, such as creativity and resilience.

If you would like to get involved in the Green Skills Fayre, then please click the button below and fill in the form to register your interest!

take part in the green skills fayre

How can we support young people to develop green skills?

Prior to the fayres, we will be leading assemblies for young people to get them to consider what green skills they could develop from the subjects they are studying at school, and how they might apply them in different jobs to help the West of England reach its goal of net zero carbon emissions.

We will also be providing workshops that tie-in to the Green Skills Fayres and allow young people to have a go at digital engineering, scientific research, undertaking a green audit of their school, establishing an eco committee, debating sustainability topics, and developing creative communication campaigns.

Our Green Skills Meet-up

stephmartin | 28 September 202228 September 2022

Last week DETI Inspire attended an Our Green Skills meet-up at the SS Great Britain. The event allowed us to interact with educators in the South-West and provide them with educational resources related to sustainable engineering.

Our Green Skills aims to promote the teaching and raising awareness of green skills in schools. These skills include those that’ll help kids thrive in a future workforce that is more focused on sustainability, such as those needed to reduce carbon emissions, improve energy efficiency, and prevent further biodiversity loss.

As well as the exchange of ideas and opportunities to promote green skills to schoolkids, we successfully recruited STEM ambassadors, who were aiming to get more involved in outreach. STEM ambassadors are crucial for engaging children with STEM topics, as they represent the diverse types of people found in their field and demonstrate the wide variety of roles that kids can picture themselves in.

We also promoted a Youth Climate Communications Toolkit: a short booklet that schoolkids can work through to help them develop a plan to communicate about climate change and how we can work together to prevent further harm to the environment in a format that interests them. This could be through social media, filmmaking, letter writing, and many other ways.

We hope to attend more similar events in future to connect with other educators who want to equip children with the tools they need to create a more sustainable future for themselves.

DETI Inspire Share Outreach Methods at the Interact Conference

stephmartin | 22 September 202222 September 2022

DETI Inspire team members Josh and Stephanie headed to Cardiff last week to share their methods of outreach to schools with other science communicators in a variety of different STEM fields.

Interact, held annually, is an engagement symposium for the physical sciences organised by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). With the stunning backdrop of Cardiff City Hall, this year’s event allowed the exchange of ideas and learning from a variety of organisations, such as Science Made Simple, the Institute of Physics, and the Royal Astronomical Society.

DETI Inspire ran two workshops throughout the day showcasing ‘The West in Minecraft’, an engineering outreach session typically provided for school groups. The session allows children to access a digital landmark from Bristol or Bath and make changes and improvements to it via the tools provided in the popular game Minecraft to solve a problem, with a focus on sustainability.

Stephanie is stood in front of a table covered with kids engineering and science books, small robots, and leaflets. She is raising her fist, copying the statue behind her which is doing the same. — Stephanie at the DETI Inspire market stall

Participants in the workshops at Interact were encouraged to imagine they were their 10-year-old selves to create an immersive experience that allowed them to understand exactly how the kids benefit from these sessions. Both sessions were well-attended, and conversations with staff and students from different organisations and universities suggested a current interest surrounding the incorporation of computer games into science outreach for schools.

Outreach discussions weren’t limited to just Minecraft though, as Stephanie and Josh arrived at the conference equipped with other engineering games, tools, and books that DETI Inspire use for outreach. Setting up robot battles was quickly found to be the most effective way of getting attendees to stop at their market stall, to then participate in conversations surrounding science communication methods and, in particular, advertise the work that DETI Inspire do.