Y6 Virtual STEM Morning

Year 6 joined up with Smartstems, a Scottish based charity, which helps to connect schools to STEM based role models.

We held a virtual STEM morning which consisted of listening to two young and inspiring female STEM experts talk about their careers and how they got into them. After that, the children had a live question and answer session with the experts.

The Year 6 children were fascinated to listen to cyber security analyst, Maria Khokhar, who talked about ethical hacking, the importance of online safety and how she became a cyber security expert. They also listened to Penny Morton, a product designer engineer, who talked about how her love of creative problem solving and STEM subjects like physics and maths led her to an exciting career as a product design engineer.

After the speakers, the children were set a problem solving task – to design and build the tallest tower out of paper plates. The winning groups are looking forward to receiving a special prize in the post from SMARTstems.

The challenge was then followed by a discovery question time – discussing how a current real life problem could be solved in the future.

The event was designed to create and strengthen connections between industry and education, and help children to connect their current learning to future careers.

We look forward to working with SMARTstems again in the future to develop this STEM relationship and help the children to understand the breadth and depth of STEM careers that are available now and those that might be created in the future.

For more information visit smartstems.org