STEM Ambassador Programme – update on how best to access Greater Manchester’s 1100 STEM Ambassador role model volunteers

Reverse Engineering – Get your pupils understanding engineering by taking things apart

STEM Success Story – Hear from Ladybridge High School who are working hard to embed STEM across their school

Too Much Information – HELP! – making sense of all the STEM related competitions, resources, and funding opportunities

Key Dates for the Diary – Don’t miss out on excellent STEM Related Events

Your Feedback – tell us how your STEM events can be improved

Welcome

STEMNET is a national organisation funded by the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills to offer FREE services to state funded high schools. We offer free impartial advice to inspire and engage young people in Science Technology, Engineering and Maths, through services including the STEM Advisory Network, the STEM Ambassador Programme and STEM Clubs. In Greater Manchester the STEMNET contract is held at the Museum of Science and Industry (MSI). We are in a period of changing branding at the museum and the format of our newsletter is a little in flux, so you may see some changes over the next few newsletters – all to make it simpler and easier for busy teachers to access!

Please do forward this newsletter on to colleagues and friends you think will benefit from our services. For more information please visit the STEMNET website.

STEM Ambassador Programme

Add relevance, context and real life examples to your STEM teaching by requesting some of our STEM Ambassador role model volunteers to come and bring the STEM curriculum to life. Banish the dreaded question “Why are we learning this?” by requesting STEM Ambassadors for FREE you can embed them in your schools through regular lessons, extracurricular Clubs, mentoring, one off activity days or even ask them to meet your parents.

The STEM Ambassador Programme is nationally coordinated by STEMNET and here at MSI we have approximately 1100 inducted and DBS checked volunteers registered with us. If you are a Greater Manchester school you can request STEM Ambassadors to link with your school by contacting us at ambassadors@msimanchester.org.uk or via the STEMNET Request Management System. If you are not sure how to start using STEM Ambassadors or you simply want some fresh ideas please get in touch.

Reverse Engineering

STEM Ambassador John Welford developed the idea of inspiring pupils with the practical applications of STEM subjects by taking everyday items apart to learn how they work. He approached the team to run a larger event at MSI involving pupils from 11 different schools, working in teams to dismantle objects including flat screen TVs, toasters, video cameras, mobile phones, speakers and power washers to name just a few. In addition to getting hands on with tools and covered in oil, schools were matched with a STEM Ambassador with engineering experience who supported the students in thinking about how their object had been engineered and planning a presentation about their object, and every student got the chance to learn about Engineering careers as well.
Students commented that they had learnt a lot from the day:
“I now understand the purpose of reverse engineering. I have reverse engineered a vacuum so I have put manual skills to practice.”
“There is lots of work in engineering. It’s really open and broad. There are opportunities to travel or learn new things”
For the event we invested in all the tools needed to run the activity, and we have STEM Ambassadors with engineering backgrounds willing to support similar events in schools. If you would like to run a ‘Reverse Engineering’ at your school please don’t hesitate to get in touch by emailing ambassadors@msimanchester.org.uk.

STEM Success Story

Lauren Robinson of Ladybride High School is working hard to embed STEM Ambassadors in her school and get STEM departments working more closely together, and wanted to share with us a particularly successful careers fair event she ran earlier on in the year as an example of how schools can request STEM Ambassadors to support events.

Ladybride Careers Fair March 2015
“In order to promote STEM at Ladybridge, we wanted to hold a careers fair that was focused solely on STEM. The idea was to invite local colleges, apprenticeship providers and universities, alongside STEM Ambassadors, so that students could see the ‘big picture’. Pupils were able to speak to Ambassadors and ask them about their careers and why they like working in their chosen STEM field. Then, pupils could then speak to further education providers to see how they can get into these different STEM careers. Pupils were able to get a feel for lots of different careers they might not have even heard of about before and speak to real people who do that job on a daily basis.
During one of the STEMNET networking meetings I put in a request for ambassadors. It was very quick and easy to complete the request form and I was delighted by the number of people that wanted to come to our school and speak to our pupils. Soon after my request, I had several people contact me to offer their services.”
Lauren received support from a software developer, a chemical engineer and Dr Shane McKie all through the STEM Ambassador scheme.
Shane Mckie, a Biomedical Imaging Scientist from the University of Manchester, set up a stall with various interactive ‘brain games’ for pupils to play.
“This was a great way to engage pupils and inform them about the work he does using MRI to investigate psychiatric disorders.” Said Lauren. “Shane was excellent at answering questions from pupils about his field of work and about other ways to get into a career in STEM.”
Shane told us: “I became a STEM ambassador to get school children interested in STEM subjects and hopefully STEM careers. I feel by exposing children to the variety of careers covered by STEM breaks down certain stereotypes and helps them make more informed choices in the future.
The day was very enjoyable and the children seemed to like playing the “brain” games that are based on cognitive tasks we use in the MR scanner to investigate treatment effects in psychiatric research. In my opinion this is a fun way to show how physics works in medicine.”
Please share with us the innovative ways you are using STEM Ambassadors at your school, share your story by emailing us at ambassadors@msimanchester.org.uk

Too Much Information – HELP!

As a teacher you can be swamped by information about new resources, initiatives, funding, and competitions leaving you tempted to ignore the lot!
We have tried to wade through some of that information for you and come up with 3 easy to access powerpoints (attached to this email, linked at the bottom) with just some of the current competition, resource and funding opportunities available. Competitions in particular are a great thing to do in a STEM Club and request STEM Ambassadors to support.
Please do keep in mind that in 2016 Manchester is the European City of Science. The Greater Manchester STEM team are working closely with ECoS to develop The Great Science Share – A day for young people to enjoy sharing science which will take place on 6th July 2016. More details about the day will emerge later this month but the day will allow schools to showcase the science their pupils have been involved with throughout the year. Weather that’s a project, experiment, completion or event schools will be able to show off their innovative, inventive and creativity by showing the City. The team will be in touch to communicate more on this soon.

Dates for the Diary

Networking Live Museum of Science and Industry 7th January 2016 17:00 – 19:00
MSI Teacher Lates, “Seeing Sounds” KS3 workshop preview Museum of Science and Industry 11th February 2016 17:00 – 19:00
British Science Week Nationwide 11th-20th March 2016 n/a
The Great Science Share Museum of Science and Industry 6th July 2016 18:00 – 20:00

Your Feedback

We strive to make improvements to our services and look at new and innovative ways to encourage young people to explore the world of STEM.
Evaluation of our services is important to us; we value input from teachers, pupils and our STEM Ambassador volunteers. Therefore, we have online surveys where you can leave your feedback.
If you have recently hosted a STEM Ambassador at your school, or have experienced our services in the past, please follow this link to a short survey. Your feedback is greatly appreciated and will help us to improve and shape our services to the needs of schools in Greater Manchester.

Thank you.

Roderick Hamilton
STEM Schools Liaison Officer
Tel: 0161 606 0138

Museum of Science and Industry
Liverpool Road
Manchester M3 4FP

msimanchester.org.uk

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Cravings: Does your food control you?
Open until September 2016

Evaporation
Open until May 2016
The Museum of Science and Industry is part of the Science Museum Group (SMG) which incorporates the Science Museum, Museum of Science and Industry, National Railway Museum York, National Media Museum, National Railway Museum Shildon.

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