Schools' Science and Engineering celebration event grows bigger

This year’s Annual Celebration of Schools’ Science and Engineering in the East Midlands will be the biggest yet with a significantly greater number of students taking part than the previous years. More than 180 of the region’s schools’ budding scientists, engineers and technologists will be displaying more than 80 exciting science and engineering projects to compete for prizes at the event.

The event will bring together the regional competitions for BA CREST Awards, Young Engineers K’Nex Challenge and Young Engineers for Britain. In addition, secondary students will be taking part in exciting activities run by the university whilst 6^th Form students will be challenged to think more deeply about the science of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI).

The East Midlands Development Agency (emda) is backing the event taking  place on Tuesday 4 July 2006. It is being hosted for the first time by the Centre for Effective Learning in Science (CELS), based at Nottingham Trent University. It will celebrate and reward students’ creativity and ingenuity in the areas of science, engineering and technology in schools.

Sue Kirby, Director of Policy and Communications at emda said, “emda is pleased to sponsor the Annual Celebration of Schools’ Science and Engineering in the East Midlands. The event helps promote the importance of developing a culture of innovation amongst our young people.

“Increasing Science, Engineering and Technology skills across the East Midlands is vital to the creation of a knowledge based economy. We need to inspire young people to develop these skills if we are to create a flourishing region for their future.”

CELS Outreach Co-ordinator at Nottingham Trent University, Georgina Westbrook, said: “CELS  is looking forward to hosting and being involved in the CREST awards for the first time.

“It’s always great to see the variety of projects and the effort that has been put into them across the age groups. We hope the lectures and workshops we are  providing for the students will inspire and maintain their interest in science.”

Judges for the event are drawn from representatives of the supporting organisations, universities, local senior teachers and lecturers and the Science and Engineering Ambassadors programme.

The event is being managed by SETPOINT Leicestershire with support from the other four SETPOINTs in the East Midlands region that promote the BA CREST Awards.

For further information about the BA CREST Awards go to www.the-ba.net/crest or contact the Regional Manager, Garth Lee on 07973 655783. For further information about Young Engineers see www.youngeng.org