STEMNET Hole in one

You may not associate designing and making mini golf courses out of card with your usual school work. Well, it’s a different story for the pupils involved with the STEM challenges, because for them this kind of work is a regular event.

Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) challenges are designed to allow students to design and create products and models without limits and without having to worry about the school bell going off half way through their unfinished project. The challenges focus on science, technology, engineering and maths as a basis to create fun and interesting projects.

KSHSSA’s news team went to the National Centre for Craft and Design in Sleaford to find out about an ‘in-house’ STEM project that was taking place there. Three schools from across Lincolnshire, KSHSSA, Branston Community Academy and Boston Grammar School, participated in the challenge to create a miniature golf course built out of card, influenced by the designs that can be seen in the NCCD’s exhibition, the ‘Blue Garden’. Mr Richards, a technology teacher from KSHSSA, organised the activity day. He told our Young Journalist STEM correspondent, “We can get resources and ideas from anything, so the idea is that the students come in here and use their own creative thinking to come up with ideas.”

The golf course challenge was based on those done previously by STEM, as it involved the pupils of the three participating schools using numerous important skills such as, mathematics, design and technology, problem solving, model making, decision making and most importantly, teamwork.

Hannah, a pupil at KSHSSA, told our team, “It provides you with the skills to communicate with other people and it’s learning other skills like cutting out all the pieces.” Jay from Boston Grammar School told us how the challenges develop patience and teamwork and added, “It’s nice to make new friends and meet new people. “ Mr Richards explained how the day was going, “I think it’s going well, the idea is that they do the thinking and their independent work so we are trying to stand back a little and let them solve their own problems instead of taking the lead from the teachers.”

Mr James, a technology teacher at Boston Grammar, explained the benefits of the STEM activity day for the pupils. He told us, “It gets the pupils out in the real world, so rather than just being in a classroom all the time it stretches them a bit further than they would be normally, and it gives them the opportunity to work with people they don’t normally get to work with. They get the chance to be guided by other people and the whole experience is a different day to excite the students in technology, STEM and to doing something different.”

The final products from the different groups showed how hard the students had worked, while still having fun throughout the challenge. The mini golf courses were complex and colourful, and certainly used all of the skills involved with the STEM challenges well. With the success of today’s event, Mr Richards explained the plans for many more STEM challenge days to follow in the future.

He told us, “We’ve got fourteen dates for events, split between the key stages, so we’re going to have primary schools doing this all the way up to sixth formers. We’ve also got the NCCD, KSHSSA school and the University of Lincoln on board for these, so there’s going to be lots of different events with different ages groups.”

By Abigail and Grace, KSHSSA Newsroom

To view the Blue Garden exhibition that the students used for inspiration, click here

For more information on the STEM challenges, visit http://www.stemchallenges.net/

To see what the pupils got up to on the day, click the YouTube link below: