UWE Bristol declared a Climate and Ecological Emergency in 2020 and has since made a number of commitments in its 2030 Strategy towards tackling the environmental crisis. These include being carbon neutral by 2030, reduce water and energy use, cut waste and single-use plastic, support biodiversity, sustainable travel, and climate related research, and work with students to address climate change and environmental challenges through teaching, learning and curricula. UWE Bristol regularly publishes reports where it shares the progress in achieving these sustainability goals.
UWE Bristol’s School of Engineering outreach team are pleased to be featured multiple times in the university’s latest Sustainability Report!
We Make Our Future Planetarium Shows
The We Make Our Future Planetarium show features prominently in the report’s section about Research and Knowledge Exchange for Sustainable Development.
We Make Our Future sets out the idea that to achieve net zero and a low carbon global economy, everything we make, and use will need to be completely re-imagined and re-engineered. It aims to show that the digital revolution is boosting the potential for engineers’ design thinking to optimise not only the development process but also the potential for collaborative citizen engagement.
The show has been designed with planetarium experts Explorer Dome and was part of the DETI Inspire programme. The show was featured at COP26 in Glasgow in 2021 and has since been touring schools around the west of England thanks to funding from the Royal Academy of Engineering.
Whilst there are currently no funded shows available, schools can still book them directly through Explorer Dome. More information about the show, and how to book it is available on our Digital Trailblazers webpages.
Visit by Metro Mayor Dan Norris
The outreach team also had a mention in an article about Metro Mayor Dan Norris’ visit to UWE Bristol’s School of Engineering in June 2022: Metro Mayor meets young minds behind best of West of England clean tech.
Dan Norris met with skilled young engineers and entrepreneurs working on innovative projects, including drones for measuring air microplastics, leak-proof hydrogen storage containers, and crop growth optimization machines. These initiatives were funded through our Digital Engineering Technology and Innovation (DETI) programme, which received £5 million from the West of England Combined Authority.
During the visit, Mr. Norris also met learners from the Green Skills for Jobs and Entrepreneurship (Green Skills) project, which aims to upskill learners from Black, Asian, and minoritized ethnicities to support the region’s net-zero target.
Dissemination activities for education for sustainable development
With the publication of the Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) Guidance by Advance HE and the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) in 2021–22, Education for Sustainable Development received significant – and well-deserved – national attention.
Venkat Bakthavatchaalam, Laura Fogg-Rogers and Georgina Gough from the School of Engineering actively supported the dissemination of this document with a presentation at the 2022 Dresden Nexus Conference on the topic of Development and evaluation of a successful method to embed Sustainable Development Goals in engineering curriculum.
Another dissemination activity featured in the report is the Digital Engineering Technology and Innovation (DETI) Inspire outreach programme, which engaged children in primary and secondary education across the West of England, with a focus on disadvantaged areas.
Using curriculum-linked engineering outreach and careers support, it connected children with real-life, diverse engineering role models to widen participation and aspirations for STEM careers.
The Inspire programme was led by Dr Laura Fogg-Rogers, Senior Lecturer and Researcher at UWE Bristol, with support from Graphic Science, the STEM Ambassador hub of the West of England, and in collaboration with the Wessex Inspiration Network and Future Quest, leaders for Higher Education outreach into secondary schools of the region.