Ignition* Newsletter - Academic Year end 2010

STEM Fluency Lab 2010

We have now begun our recruitment for this year’s STEM Fluency Lab. Bringing together creativity, STEM and teaching, we will be holding our 4-day residential from Nov 26th – 30th at Whitwell Hotel and Conference Centre. Working with creative practitioners from both science and arts backgrounds, participants will explore creative ideas and experiences, in order to broaden their teaching methods and ideas about delivering STEM subjects in schools. We have places for 20 teachers from the East Midlands region, from all phases. If you are interested in attending the STEM Fluency Lab, please click the link below to submit your expression of interest. http://ignition.wufoo.com/forms/stem-fluency-labs-expressions-of-interest/ To find out more about the Labs, run by PAL (http://www.pallabs.org/), please visit our website for details of our two previous labs.

Invent!

We are still getting over what was a fantastic day this year's Invent! competition was, back at Snibston Discovery Park, Coalville. Once again, we were joined by the ever-energetic Gareth Jones as our head judge. Shortlisted teams from Dovecote Primary, Ivanhoe College, Burbage Primary,and Keyworth Primary School, along with pupils from Crown Hills Community College, all took part in a day filled with crazy creative workshops, ranging from ‘Plants of the Future’ to ‘Build a Brain’. All the shortlisted inventions were demonstrated at the event, which was held at Snibston, and three prizes were awarded, after some tough decision-making from the judging panel, which included Emily Cummins and Cathy Brown from STEMNET. Receiving the runner up prize for their fantastic windmill-themed 'Pop a balloon with a flick' invention was a new team from Keyworth Primary School. The Burbage Inventors Group (also known as B.I.G!) were awarded a prize from last years winning team, Keyworth, and Ivanhoe scooped the first prize for their very elaborate device to pop a balloon, which included fire, a helium balloon and dominos toppling around a corner! The winning team will experience A Grand Engineering Day Out as the first prize, and £100 Amazon vouchers were awarded to the other two winning teams. Congratulations to all teams, and a big thanks to all our workshop leaders, helpers and Snibston, who all helped to make the day one to remember!

Lab 13

And the winner is . . . This year’s Lab 13 visits have now come to an end, and after visiting 10 schools across the East Midlands region, the hard task is now deciding on the best three schools to host the last three Lab 13s! Check back on the website to find out which schools were successful.

Creative Sparks

We have had a very busy few months with our Creative Sparks. Firstly, our original Ignite! Creative Sparks are blazing ahead with their own individual achievements. Alex Pryce is to study for a PhD at Oxford, reading Contemporary Northern Irish Women’s poetry, Emily Cummins, as well as judging our Invent! competition, has also been awarded a First in her Business Studies degree at Leeds University and and Gurjit Singh Sidhu has achieved a distinction for his Masters in Aero Mechanical Engineering! Our current Sparks are certainly set to follow in their high flying footsteps. Courtney Williams is currently attending the European Science Open Forum in Turin, promoting creativity in science to anyone who is doubtful. We have also signed up 6new Creative Sparks, all aged between 16 and 21; Brian Fury, Josiah Ford, Sophie Jones, James Winfield, Jake Birch and Hugo Wilson. Hugo has started his own blog for his home-made car ideas - makeitdrive.blogspot.com. For more information on all of our Creative Sparks, please visit our website, and click on the Creative Sparks page. We are still on the lookout for 4 more Creative Sparks, so if you know of any exceptionally creative young people, please contact sarah@ignitefutures.org.uk

CAWS

We will soon be looking for 10 additional secondary schools to take part in next year’s Come Alive with Science, along with new creative and stem practitioners to partner up with the schools. Schools will have the opportunity to receive funding to work with their practitioners to develop creative STEM activities during National Science and Engineering Week in March 2011 (11th – 20th March). The creative activities are all led by young people and are designed to engage feeder primary schools and parents. For more information, please contact sarah@ignitefutures.org.uk.

Sci Art Fusions

We have three fantastic collaborations in the works. Trevor Woolery, our animation specialist is working with Brookhill Leys Primary School, Michelle Walker is working with the Holgate School, and Martin Blackham has paired up with Hope Valley School - all to produce 3 cracking films! We are looking forward to seeing the final results, and how STEM subjects have been tackled creatively through film. Watch this space for details of the premiere. Our first Sci Art Fusions commission, Cosmos, has been installed at Bluecoat School, and is now being used to deliver creative activities with SEN pupils. The Cosmos set has been a great success in its new home, and we hope many more students will benefit from the set.