Year 9 students on the Futures pathway participated in an Energy Quest workshop on Friday 18th June. Energy Quest is a curriculum-linked programme for schools which encourages young people to find out all about sustainable energy and learn about associated engineering careers. Funded by Shell, EngineeringUK has worked with employer partners and funders to develop, test and evaluate different content and ways of delivery to maximise the programme’s impact on young people, particularly girls and other groups that are under-represented in the engineering profession.
Energy Quest is a 2-hour immersive workshop for 11–14-year-olds designed to unlock their inner engineer as they explore alternative energy sources. Through an exciting narrative, students are challenged to save the day by utilising their practical engineering skills and find a solution to help a group of young people in danger. During the challenge, students encounter a range of engineers as they uncover the skills engineers possess and the way energy plays an important role in all our lives. Students used the remnants of a packed lunch to generate power to charge a mobile phone. The Futures’ students all managed to generate energy from oranges and learnt about electromagnetism in a fun interactive way. The workshop also developed the 21st century skill of teamwork. It challenged Dr Pickup’s technical resilience skills as in these COVID times the facilitator was remote and the whole workshop was delivered via Microsoft teams.
