NPL Outreach takes ten talks to 60 schools in 5 days

In association with the STEM Hub, a group of NPL staff described their careers, NPL work and specialist areas to groups of primary and secondary schoolchildren in a series of morning assemblies.

This is NPL and STEM Hub’s first such activity and we were thrilled with the take up. STEM Hub covers the South East (Essex, Kent, Surrey and Sussex) and some participants came from further afield.

Up to 40 attended each session, with each participant sharing their screen with classes, year groups or the whole school. Across the week around 4,500 pupils took part. 

Lydia Ahern (STEM Hub) said:

• “I am very grateful for the hard work put in by all in creating the presentations. NPL mustered a wonderfully diverse range of speakers of various seniorities, backgrounds and subject specialisms. The engagement was great as witnessed from the number of questions in the chat, especially from the primary schools, who would probably have carried on for another hour.”

Andrew Hanson (NPL) said:

• “This is a real success story. It felt like a virtual Open Day – that lasted a week. C19 barred us from school visits this year, and schools are hesitant to engage with anything extra, yet we’ve managed to reach an incredible number of students to convince them of the value and excitement of STEM and measurement. It’s gratifying that several returned to see many sessions – there was evidently sufficient variation in different speakers’ approaches to keep people happy.”

Recorded versions of the talks will be shared for more audiences to view in our Career Talks Section

For NPL STEM Ambassadors it was a great opportunity to brush up their presentation skills and give something back. Well done team:

Nana Akuffo (Challenges of Monitoring Pollution), Kirti Prakash (Microscopic Wonderland), Jean Morris (Innovation in a Crisis), Graham Smith (Renewable Energy), Beth Hinchliffe (Measuring Particles), Belle Panesar (Medical Ultrasound), Anu Bhaisare (Nuclear Metrology), Andrew Hanson (Maths in Music / Colour and light) and Amal Lavender (Manufacturing).

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