A group of Year 8 Students have been invited to take part in a STEM project led by Greenwich University, as part of the project they have had the chance to visit a campus, Medway Campus. Throughout the day they took part in a range of acitvities linking to STEM and were able to have a campus tour.
In the first session of the day the students were tasked designing a new building for the local area. They had to think about a 'problem', something missing that they could then use the building for. Then they needed to sketch and try to make a prototype. The students came up with problems such as; crime rates, nowhere to go in the winter (other than Bluewater), traffic build up. This resulted in some amazing designs and thinking about what could be inside. Mot opted for a building with activities and sports. While others also wanted a modern library and some food they could buy.
In the Maths session, the first task was for them to draw a clock (from memory). This was an interesting tas to watch as they all approached the task differently. Some used a compass, some started with the numbers first. They then needed to draw te hads to a certain time. Once they completed it they needed to get a peer to check their work. Some clocks were unevenly spaced out, some plotted the times wrong. The Lecturer then explained that this is an approach they use to collect data. She then went into detail about Maths and how people use it everyday, the jobs you can do with a good Maths grade. At the end of the session they were taught a trick with a Maths Game - they all wanted to take it home and try it out with friends and family!
After a well deserved lunch break, we had a Campus tour showing us the library and the different buildings which have different subjects in each. The Campus tour took us then to our next session - Science. This is where students learnt about forensic science. They learnt about the different types of fingerprints and how they get collected for evidence. They were then given the chance to print their fingerprints and then examine them to find what pattern they have. Once they completed this task they then looked at a crime scene and needed to find where they could get evidence and what potentially happened. We got some really detailed annotations from some students.
The last session before leaving was the Technology session, they started with a debate 'Is AI a form of robotics?' They had the chance to share their ideas before learning about the different type of robotics that they might not know about. The Lecturer then explained about how they work and some of the coding. Students paired up and one became the 'robot' and listened to the instructions of the 'human'. The students then had the chance to interact with the robot after she explained the three different things it could do - the students were allowed to let the robot shake their finger.