School teams aim for water conservation

School teams from across the East Midlands will soon discover details of their challenges in the Go4SET Water Conservation Project, being announced at Nottingham Trent University. Eleven teams will represent the East Midlands in this national project, which is part of the Engineering Development Trust’s STEM initiative. Go4SET is aimed at stimulating the interest of young people in science, engineering and technology (SET) at a key stage in their education.

Each participating school will field a team of six 13 and 14 year olds working with their teacher and a company mentor.

The theme is water conservation and the exact details of the project will be announced at the launch event at the Centre for Effective Learning in Science (CELS) at Nottingham Trent University on November 13.

CELS is a Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) Centre of Excellence in Teaching and Learning. The Centre seeks to enthuse students both locally and nationally about science and to help raise their aspirations. This is being achieved through an extensive Outreach programme of activities open to all school and FE students. CELS is also working to develop new materials and models for teaching science at both school and HE level.

All teams, who will also meet their company mentors at the launch event, will work on the same project brief over a period of ten weeks starting in November. As well as work on the project, the programme includes a company visit and culminates in March 2008 with a Celebration and Assessment Day. This celebration event provides an opportunity for pupils to display and demonstrate their individual projects to a group of assessors and guests attending the event.

Geoff Jellis, EDT’s Business Development Director for Midlands and Wales said, "This is the first time Go4SET has run in the East Midlands. The teams are keen to find out what their project will involve and with the skills and enthusiasm that abound in the region I am sure they will produce some excellent work."