STEM challenge inspires young minds at Old Buckenham Hall

Eighty girls enjoyed an inspiring day of science, technology and maths challenges at Old Buckenham Hall near Bury St Edmunds. The budding girl engineers represented 12 different schools from across the region. Mrs Tiffany Blackhurst, science teacher and Head of the ‘Girls’ Programme’, organised the day as a way of encouraging girls to focus on science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) subjects. Although more and more girls are choosing to study these subjects at further and higher education, Mrs Blackhurst, who has worked in the science industry, is aware that it is still an area that many women shy away from. The ‘Science, Maths and Technology Day’ was designed to encourage children to relate to the subjects in a way that is not normally possible in classroom teaching. Small teams of Year 5 girls were challenged to use logical thinking, problem solving, accuracy and their knowledge of science, technology, engineering and maths, to complete a variety of tasks. For added motivation, each challenge had a competitive element and prizes could be won for each category, in addition to a prize for the overall winners. The challenges included building a weight-bearing bridge from pasta and marshmallows and investigating which fruit juice containing the highest level of Vitamin C. In the final challenge the children had to apply their knowledge of the power of forces to design and build a wind-powered car. The overall winning team was one of the two teams from Dame Bradbury’s School and they received the trophy from Headmaster, Tom O’Sullivan. Mr O’Sullivan congratulated all the girls for demonstrating such enthusiasm and interest in the STEM subjects.