YESC STEM Education: CED's Samples Educating Scottish Students with Hands-On Learning Opportunities

Post date: 17 Oct, 2023

Last year, Dave Craig, a YESC Projects Specialist, contacted our Castlecary Depot, looking for sample cuts of specific stone paving materials but not for the usual landscaping project.

The Young Engineers and Science Clubs Scotland programme supports teachers, developing and delivering exciting hands-on educational activities. As part of this programme, Dave's task was to build 'Carbon Capture and Storage' STEM kits for Scottish schools, he needed stone samples to form part of the kits.

Our team, happy to help with the initiative, sent Dave samples of Caithness and Grampian Granite. He approved these materials, and our team cut 100 small sample tiles of each stone for the kits intended for children to experiment with, examining the grain size, looking for layering, and testing the porosity of the samples.

Here are happy teachers in Aberdeen getting their free 'Carbon Capture and Storage' STEM kits after being trained in their use.

YESC reaches pupils of all ages in primary and secondary schools with focus on areas of high social deprivation, rural isolation, as well as girls, young women, and diverse groups underrepresented in the STEM sector, and 60 Scottish schools are now using the samples.

The project has been a great success, so much so that another batch of samples was sent to Dave last week to make more STEM kits. We hope teachers and pupils have great fun experimenting with them.