Table Of ContentThe Skinners’ School
Royal Tunbridge Wells Kent TN4 9PG
www.skinners‐school.co.uk
STEM AMBASSADORS
A Report for The Skinners’ School STEM Pathfinder Project 2008‐2009
by Mark Moody
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STEM AMBASSADORS
Introduction:
Research published by DEFRA in may 2008 showed that 92% of young people say they want more climate
change information in school, and 84% think their school could take more action in combating climate change.
However, the same research shows just 8% of young people think their own school is actually doing something
about climate change.
(source: Progress Summary for Mainstreaming Sustainable Schools – Groundwork 2009)
It was this discrepancy that made us concentrate our efforts as a newly‐appointed STEM Pathfinder school on
raising awareness of climate change and its implications, by using STEM activities as a way to engage and
motivate pupils.
Some of this would be done by specific STEM activities involving STEM Tutors and teams of pupils, while
parallel to this would be the creation of “STEM Ambassadors” who could teach other pupils about the issues
involved.
STEM Ambassadors would need to be self‐motivated, clear‐thinking, enthusiastic pupils able to communicate
ideas and prepared to visit other schools to do the same there.
What follows is a series of FAQs tracing the history of STEM Ambassadors at The Skinners’ School, Tunbridge
Wells between October 2008 and June 2009, but the principles can be used by any other school, with
adjustments to suit their own circumstances. Skinners’ is a boys’ grammar school with a roll of 800
(www.skinners‐school.co.uk) .
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1. What are ‘STEM Ambassadors’?
2. How are they selected?
3. How do STEM Ambassadors raise achievement?
4. Where do STEM Ambassadors go?
5. How do they engage with local Primary Schools?
6. What STEM work can they do at a Primary School?
7. How does a Solar Car Challenge work at a Primary School?
8. “Are your STEM Ambassadors seen as geeks?”
9. What are the challenges of keeping STEM Ambassadors going each year?
1. What are ‘STEM Ambassadors’?
STEM Ambassadors are a group of pupils who are responsible for learning about aspects of STEM in a
contextual format, and then feeding back and ‘teaching’ other pupils. They can come from any Year
group in the school, but to ensure continuity a broad spread from Y7 – 12 is recommended.
In our case, our focus was ‘Sustainable STEM’ – we wanted the pupils to find out about, and teach
others about alternatives to fossil fuel energy.
STEM Ambassadors find out by going on visits or trips with their allocated STEM Tutor to learn how
STEM is being used in the real‐world, or as part of some new innovation. During their trip they take
photos or video which are later assembled into a format suitable for an assembly to a designated year
group.
In other words they ‘pass it on’ to other pupils.
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‘7 of our STEM Ambassadors (plus tutor) with the 2009 DCSF Teaching Award for Outstanding
Sustainable School South East Region’
2. How are they selected?
We selected ours mainly from our existing Eco‐Committee, but also recruited some from GCSE Y10 and
Y11 science classes simply by asking. Older pupils tend to have the ICT skills needed to prepare power
points or edit photos and video; younger pupils demonstrate enthusiasm and an open mind to new
ideas.
There is a role for most skills and strengths – good communicators can deliver the assemblies, creative
types can take the video and photos, IT‐literate pupils can assemble power‐points, and good
organisers can act as ‘Blue‐Hat’ thinkers (De Bono) and co‐ordinate the whole group.
The pupils then attend an initial lunchtime meeting where their roles and responsibilities are
explained.
Pupils can take home a copy of their contract to show / discuss with their parents before committing
to the role. An email contact list is useful to call meetings or circulate notices.
A copy of the contract is reproduced in Appendix 1:
‘Giving a joint climate change presentation with pupils from other schools’
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3. How do STEM Ambassadors raise achievement?
Students are encouraged to think creatively and independently in order to find solutions to problems – this
is linked to a whole school focus on developing personalised learning and thinking skills (PLTS).
STEM ambassadors demonstrate greater communication skills by working with younger primary pupils.
By feeding back to others, they widen interest, participation and attainment in Technology, Science &
Mathematics.
They teach and demonstrate sustainable technologies in linked primary schools at assemblies and science
fairs– raising awareness of STEM in a cross‐phase way.
STEM ambassadors in primary schools will widen interest in STEM subjects and confidence of STEM
teachers in primary schools. Our STEM Ambassadors are used at science conferences as demonstrators,
speakers or meters‐and‐greeters.
They gain in self‐esteem by being part of an important and valuable school team.
STEM Ambassador demonstrating the wireless weather station to visitors
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4. Where do STEM Ambassadors go?
We selected visits to places within our county (Kent) in order to keep costs down as well as make it
more relevant. There were plenty of places that demonstrated sustainable STEM technology but in the
end we opted for the following:
Wood‐chip boiler and coppicing at Bore Place, near Sevenoaks
Bio‐Diesel from chip fat ( as above)
Organic Dairy Farming ( as above)
Eco‐Friendly house ( Grand Designs) at Staplehurst
Thanet Earth and hydroponics, near Margate
Kentish Flats wind farm, nr Faversham
Bedgebury Forest ‘Energy in the Weald’ day, for 300 primary pupils, near Cranbrook
Running Solar Car Challenges at local primary schools to Y6. Hever CPS, Rotherfield CPS, St Paul’s
Rusthall
A sample Letter sent to STEM Ambassador parents is reproduced in Appendix 2:
‘Making Bio‐diesel from chip‐oil at Bore Place’
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5. How do they engage with local Primary Schools?
Our experience is that local primary teachers really WANT to work more closely with secondary pupils
but don’t feel confident enough to make the first approach move. Specialist schools will already have
local primary contacts to exploit, or can just use normal feeder schools to set up an initial, exploratory
meeting.
Pupils who used to go to that school are usually very keen to go back for a visit!
STEM Ambassadors gain self‐esteem and valuable skills by working with primary pupils, whilst the
primary students get a vital, extra insight into STEM from a source other than their normal teacher.
Their teachers value the contact as it provides a link between KS2 and KS3.
Contact the LEA Primary Science Advisor for details of schools who have expressed an interest in
working with secondary schools.
6. What STEM work can they do at a primary school?
The STEM work we do with primary schools includes:
Forensic Science Day for Y5 pupils – a ‘Whodunnit’ set in the science labs
Maths Enhancement for G+T pupils
‘Reflections Mirror’ – science and literacy competition
‘Ask Professor Y’ – our own ‘Brainiac’ scientists who answer questions posed by the youngsters.
Solar Car challenges – where pupils build and race model solar cars
Weald Energy Story ‐ ‘The Big Energy Day’ ‐ STEM Ambassadors were used here to demonstrate solar
panel technology to 300 primary school pupils and teachers from 6 local schools.
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STEM Ambassadors supervising one of the solar car heats at the Weald Energy Story
How does a Solar Car Challenge primary activity work?
Typical itinerary suitable for STEM afternoon with two Y6 classes (of 30 pupils per class).
12.30 Arrive at primary school; packed lunch
13.00 Introduction from STEM teacher to primary pupils.
13.10 – 13.45 STEM Ambassadors guide pupils to construct solar cars. Best done when one ambassador
assumes role of ‘teacher’ and others circulate helping teams as needed.
13.45 – 14.00 Teams outside ‘tweaking’ cars to ensure straight line performance.
14.00 Races – done with heats. Straight line performance between two fixed points
14.30 Grand final and awards to best team. Photos.
Back to classes for dismantle of solar cars.
15.00 Summary and review of solar power now and in the future. Prizes awarded to winners (we
award mini‐solar‐cars to the winning team, and recycled pencils and certificates to everyone
else)
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Solar Car Kits in use. Solar car kits in use at the Weald Energy Story.
Solar Car kits can be purchased from www.solar‐active.com they are not cheap at £30 per kit, but they are
sustainable in that they can be used over again – some of ours are 5 years old now and still working properly.
We obtained a grant of £700 from the SDF (Sustainable Development Fund) to purchase class sets of cars.
Other sources of grants for sustainable STEM technologies are listed in Appendix 3.
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7. “Are your STEM Ambassadors seen as ‘geeks’?”
This question is often asked by visitors to our school, and the pupils are always happy to be the first to tell
them emphatically NO!
Young people are genuinely interested in their world and want to grow up in a better place where sustainable
technology starts to replace older, more polluting forms of energy generation. Being part of an exclusive group
who gets to go on interesting trips and gets to see the latest technology, gives them status amongst their
peers.
Sixth Form STEM Ambassadors at Southborough Primary School ( one even making a coconut defy gravity)
Giving assemblies to different year groups, and presentations to other schools, gives these pupils the self‐
confidence to answer any such criticism logically and sensibly ‐ far from being ‘geeks’, they are just normal,
every‐day kids!
‘
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Description:STEM Ambassadors are a group of pupils who are responsible for learning . 13.45 – 14.00 Teams outside 'tweaking' cars to ensure straight line
