A few weeks ago the Physics Mentoring Project was proud to introduce our newest branch: “Physics Mentoring – Exploring Connections”. Exploring Connections has been established to highlight the alternative routes into Physics and STEM, continuing to make Physics relevant to school students’ lives. This event also highlighted local STEM employment opportunities in the local area.
Hosted at Coleg y Cymoedd, the event invited five local STEM employers to work with GCSE-aged students, some of whom had completed the GCSE Physics Mentoring Project over the last academic year.
Students had the opportunity to work with Axiom, Balfour-Beatty, Bute Energy, GE Engineering and Space Forge on “hands-on” activities. These activities included bridge building, making rockets, and reverse-engineering using Lego. The students also engaged with apprentices from Axiom and GE Engineering. They got to talk to them about their lives as apprentices and find out more about this alternative pathway into physics and STEM.
Three schools took part in the event: Brynteg Comprehensive School, Risca Community Comprehensive School and Whitmore High School. At the beginning of the day the students were unsure what the day’s events would hold and predicted a “normal” employer event. By the end of the day, feedback from students was very positive. Participants were pleasantly surprised by the hands-on nature of the employer-run activities throughout the day and the campus tour to the engineering workshop became so popular that we had to run it twice to curb any disappointment in those who missed it the first time around.
We are thrilled that all the employers also had an enjoyable time on the day and look forward to putting on similar events in the future. A case study on this event will follow from Ondata Research. Looking to the future of Exploring Connections, the team are preparing to produce a short video about being an apprentice in STEM. Look out on the website for both of these in the next few months!
This event was made possible through a partnership and funding between Cardiff University, Coleg y Cymoedd, USW, and Bridgend STEAM College.
Photos by Wales News
