The Heart of England Community Rail Partnership (CRP) worked with the Smallpeice Trust, an educational charity that inspires young people to pursue careers in science and engineering, to deliver STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education in a hands-on way to 739 students across local Warwickshire and Coventry secondary schools over three years.
The STEM days funded by CrossCountry’s community engagement fund, saw students exploring sustainable stations by designing one in teams, taking inspiration from a member of the Heart of England CRP's talk at the start of the day. Students developed their design and investigation skills by constructing a train (a chassis to go on rails, and a foam body that should be aerodynamic). The day rounded up with a marketing pitch from each team of students, promoting their train and station to their peers.
The workshops were well received with 96% of students saying that they had learnt something new and 86% reporting back that they had a greater appreciation of engineers after the day.
As part of the programme, trips were organised for 240 students exploring different railway themed sites, these included: The London Transport Museum, a HS2 site, Oxley train maintenance depot, and Long Marston innovation centre.
The CRP created careers resource packs for all the schools who took part in the project which included lesson plans, quizzes, activity booklets, assembly presentations and links to rail careers resources.
For the final part of the project a further 240 students are planned to take part in STEM days for the next academic year.
Info
At the time of publishing, all information given is correct. Details of events, businesses, and locations included may be subject to change by third parties. Please make sure to check any details with organisers before you travel.
