A Big Bang From Askham Bryan College
A Big Bang From Askham Bryan College
The 2012 regional Big Bang Showcase took part on Thursday 5th July at the Yorkshire Air Museum. The event celebrates Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) with projects entered from schools across the Yorkshire and Humber, while also giving organisations an opportunity to link up with young people to promote and demonstrate the range of STEM opportunities/activities to excite and engage learners at all levels and ages.
All sections from Askham Bryan College were represented at the event and played a big part in giving the children a great experience of how our College relates to STEM. Outdoor Adventure provided the sport science link by running a Climbing Wall and never stopped all day with probably near to 2000 kids getting a chance to scale the heights, from this they then had the opportunity to put their climbing skills to use with Arboriculture team as they explored the techniques and engineering of using ropes to climb tall trees, and could finish off by testing the ground for sports use with the sports turf experts. The tractors proved a massive hit under the Agric Engineering banner with a queue to sit and press buttons and have their picture taken at the helm, some had delight in challenging themselves in driving the tractor and trailer – albeit a remote control version.
The children could also get up close to a different type of engineering and technology with the motorsport vehicles and able to watch videos of the brave Askham Bryan Motorsport team on their recent hill climb adventures. Great interest and fascination was provided by Horticulture enabling them to watch the behaviour of minibeasts under the powerful microscopes and on the screen. Animal Management and Equine combined to offer a full biology experience of handling live animals, while also offering the chance of seeing dissections performed of wood pigeons, rats and heart and lungs – which was quite interesting to watch the reaction of many straight after lunch - if that wasn’t quite enough they could get up close to the skeleton parts of a horse.
A great day, a great effort and great experience & the weather was kind.