Modern Apprentices from Forth Valley College went back to school recently to help prepare Dollar Academy pupils for a national competition.
FVC’s Director of Business Development, Jennifer Tempany, and FVC Business Devlopment Partners Frances Tasker and Lorraine Kerr, and Four Engineering MAs from SP Energy Network and three from TechnipFMC, led the Primary 5 pupils on a full-day of Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) activities on Monday 27 January.
The workshops – which included building wind turbines, cars and bridges – forms part of the school’s submission to the Scottish Engineering Special Leaders Award (SESLA), which is a competition supported by the University of Strathclyde. This award invites primary and secondary pupils from across Scotland to apply an ‘engineer’s eye’ to the world and identify any problems which need solving.
As well as learning about engineering and design, the day also promoted team-building and time-keeping, and helped the pupils improve their problem-solving skills and the day culminated in the budding engineers racing the cars they had built.
Jennifer Tempany, who has been presenting STEM workshops at Dollar for the last two years, said: “This year was the third year on a row we have visited Dollar Academy. We split the pupils up into three groups. Each had a specific task to build something that would be needed during an RAF mission to deliver supplies to a school. It was a great day and all the children seemed to enjoy it.
“The event formed our launch of an effort for us to go out and present workshops supported by FVC STEM and Energy Skills Partnership (ESP) to more than 2,000 school pupils across Forth Valley by Easter.”