As the end of the school year draws closer, students and staff at the Greater Peterborough UTC celebrated their first year which was full of achievements, milestones and highs at their celebration event ‘Full STEM Ahead’.
The day featured a number of interactive STEM challenges and activities put on by staff, sponsors and employer partners such as launching water powered rockets with Anglian Water and testing students’ fitness via the use of state-of-the-art sports technology with Loughborough University.
Year 10 student ambassador Devan stepped up to deliver the morning welcome and shared his experiences of being part of the first cohort of students at GPUTC. Guest speaker Dr Emily Grossman from Sky TV’s ‘Duck Quacks Don’t Echo’, spoke about her personal journey into STEM.
Employer sponsor Perkins Engines set students the challenge of creating aeroplanes to miniature scale to see whose design and aerodynamics produced the best flight. The task challenged their understanding of maths and physics which they developed over the last year in their Engineering and Built Environment studies.
Female students took part in the WISE Campaign for girls led by Dr Grossman, which involved students taking a personality quiz to find out more about their attributes and possible career opportunities they could pursue within the STEM field.
Matt Humphries from Anglian Water said:
As always with GPUTC it was great to see a new generation of engineers and scientists getting involved with some fun new activities. It’s a real pleasure to be able to contribute as a sponsoring organisation in this way.
The day concluded in the unveiling of a brand new art sculpture to mark their first year. The 1.5m square based pyramid features panels with the names of all students, sponsors and partners.
Principal Steve Warburton explained the concept behind the day:
Full STEM Ahead was a very apt theme for activities which were all about exploration and problem solving… and also appropriate as we look forward to more progress and development in a successful second year, adapting and improving all we do as we double in size.
For more information about GPUTC, please visit: www.gputc.com