Aberdeen school kids defend NESCol from zombie invasion!

July 12, 2019

A group of Aberdeen school kids have spent the first week of their summer holidays defending North East Scotland College (NESCol) from a terrifying zombie invasion!

After an asteroid fell to earth and released a deadly virus, zombies have begun attacking the College’s Altens Campus leaving it down to just thirteen children to try and defeat them!

This was just the beginning of a themed week of activities for the eight to eleven year olds attending NESCol’s Summer STEM club with the aim of developing problem solving and decision making skills and introducing the children to the world of Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths.

Wullie Forman, Energy Skills Development Co-ordinator/Lecturer at NESCol has led the programme. He describes the exciting activities the children have been involved with during the course of the week, with the help of engineering lecturer Paul Gillespie.

“The whole theme of the summer STEM club was designed to capture the imaginations of the young people with each day having a different focus and challenge to meet as a consequence of the asteroid and the resulting zombie outbreak. The children had to come up with various solutions to the mayhem that followed in the city including building bridges, catapults, creating a green powered vehicle for transportation, designing a rocket transporter and a parachute device.”

Lecturer Paul Gillespie added, “It’s been a busy, hands on week for the children, working with their team mates on a range of activities all designed to develop their creativity and practical skills to help focus STEM development.”

This is the second time NESCol have run a STEM club specifically aimed at school children and Filip Bartoszewski aged 10 who has taken part this week has certainly enjoyed the experience.

Filip said, “It’s been such a fun week and we’ve got to do some many cool things. My favourite part was building the catapult and the paper airplane. It took a while to make the bridges to make them strong”.

Susan Grant, Director of Learning at NESCol said, “Our STEM club initiative was introduced during the Easter break earlier this year with the aim of providing primary school children with access to creative and fun learning in science, technology, engineering and maths activities during school holidays. We are passionate about encouraging the next generation to consider studying in the STEM subjects and continue to work on various projects to advance our reach across the region, the latest, in collaboration with the OGTC, being the IET Lego League.”

NESCol chairs the Regional STEM Hub for the North East of Scotland which includes members from a range of stakeholders including universities, schools, employers, OGTC (The Oil and Gas Technology Centre), Education Scotland, the Science Centre and Techfest. Its aims are to promote inspiration, excellence, equity and connection in STEM Education.