MAST staff deliver marine science and technology enterprise day to school pupils London-wide
The prestigious rooms at the Royal Geographical Society in Kensington became awash with interactive activities and information stalls filled with free giveaways and resounded to shrieks of delight as 145 pupils from schools London-wide got to grips with the weird and wonderful world of marine science and technology.
The interactive stalls presented a hands-on, practical flavour of what marine science and technology entails. They included a marine organism classification exercise, a ship design-and-make experiment and an interactive food webs game. The aim here was to facilitate learning of physics and biology concepts and to allow pupils to understand the repercussions of unsustainable use of our seas.
Courses and careers advice on all maritime-related fields was bought to life and Newcastle University was joined in this by representatives from the Sea Cadets, NYK Group Europe Ltd. and Sea Vision. NYK Group Europe Ltd. and Sea Cadets staff shared their sea faring experience with pupils at first-hand in order to inspire uptake in this relatively
unpublicised career field. All other representatives manned information stalls, amongst the most popular of which were aquaria of living rocky shore marine organisms that pupils were encouraged to hold and study.
As a finale to the day, pupils engaged in a simulated courtroom debate entitled: “is shipping a sustainable form of transport for the 21st century” and battled it out as prosecution and defence representatives to fight their case. An ‘expert witness’ panel from Newcastle University, which included biologist Dr. Gary Caldwell, and NYK Group Europe Ltd. Staff were called to give evidence. School pupils also represented jury panel members, responsible for deliberating a verdict and providing management recommendations for very real problems such as marine alien transportation, ballast water management and emissions from ships.
Debating the sustainability of the shipping industry for the 21st century |
A thoroughly successful and enjoyable day was had by all and everyone left tired but elated to be carrying a bag of marine themed goodies. The “Inspiring Seas” website is now being used by schools nationwide to encourage the uptake of STEM-based subjects and to equip our scientists of tomorrow with the ability to think more sustainably about the marine environment.
MAST and NYK Group Europe Staff pose at the end of the day with all the school pupils and their teachers |
Visit www.inspiringseas.co.uk for oceans of teaching resources to explore!