The girls from Year 8 at Leighton Park School embraced their role as STEM ambassadors with great enthusiasm on Wednesday 27th February as they welcomed Year 5 pupils from St Mary’s School, Henley, to a Teen Tech City of Tomorrow event.
Teen Tech City events require children to plan, design and build miniature models of future buildings that would make a city smarter, kinder and safer. The buildings have to be either domestic housing or a public building intended for social, retail, sport, business, transport, cultural, entertainment, educational or health purposes. On Wednesday the group from St Mary’s split into small teams, each with two of Leighton Park’s Year 8 STEM ambassadors supporting their progress. Each team had to consider global challenges such as energy, extreme weather, health and happiness and provide solutions to at least some of these issues within the design and construction of their buildings.
Each team brainstormed a number of ideas using a range of categories such as ‘most fun building’, ‘best domestic space’ and ‘most environmentally friendly building’. Once each team had agreed on their preferred category, they worked collaboratively and innovatively to turn designs into models using recyclable materials such as cereal packets, foil, straws, cardboard tubes and a lot of glue!
Teen Tech City is a fantastic opportunity for children to learn in a fun and engaging way about engineering, sustainability and teamwork. The charitable organisation officially recognises that “the activity highlights career pathways in construction, engineering and technology and promotes good citizenship.”
Peter Marshman, Leighton Park’s Head of Computer Science and organiser of Wednesday’s experience, reflected: “It was wonderful to see our young STEAM ambassadors leading the TeenTech City event for the pupils from St Mary’s. It was such a success that we hope to run more events like this next year. The events allow primary schools to have access to spaces, facilities and expertise that would otherwise make such competitions difficult for them to enter. This is all part of the iSTEM+ approach where our young STEAM ambassadors provide an integrated approach to STEM and where they add value as mentors and role models for younger children.”
Some of the creative buildings from Wednesday will be entered into the Teen Tech City national showcase taking place on 3nd April at the Emirates Stadium in London, bringing together ideas from young people all over the country and sharing designs to make the world a better place.
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