Expert mentoring helps schoolchildren develop Solutions for the Planet

25 September, 2015

The competition saw teams from ten schools in the West Midlands and Yorkshire work with business sponsors including Balfour Beatty, Brammer, Buck & Hickman, IGEM, Lafarge Tarmac and Northern Gas Networks, to tackle sustainability issues. Each company took on a mentoring role with their local team, providing an opportunity for schools to collaborate with businesses and foster entrepreneurial and STEM skills within the young people who took part. Looking at topics including waste sent to landfill, energy consumption, habitat and species protection, crime and road safety, each team worked closely with partners from business and industry to design products, services and campaigns to raise awareness and tackle today’s sustainability issues head-on.

Brammer and Buck & Hickman together mentored six local teams – three each from Wolverhampton and Solihull schools – as well as supporting them at events including the regional semi-finals, before accompanying them to the Houses of Parliament where they presented their ideas to an esteemed audience of ministers, MPs and business leaders.

One of the local teams mentored by Brammer and Buck & Hickman, Heath Park School from Wolverhampton, were awarded second place for their Safety Connected project which involved the design of a wifi device for school ties and construction hard hats – the highest placed Midlands team in the final.

Fostering STEM skills

Caroline Nash, managing director of Strategic Contracts at Brammer and Buck & Hickman commented: “All the young people we worked with were engaging, intelligent and innovative and were a credit to their schools on every occasion we worked with them. We were delighted to see them all present with such confidence and hope their involvement in Solutions for the Planet has inspired them to pursue careers in the engineering and manufacturing sector.”