Morecambe Offshore Windfarm STEM engagement

Partnering with local education providers to raise awareness of renewable energy career paths

Our school and higher education engagement programme has seen the project team over the last year work with local junior and secondary schools, through to sixth form colleges, further education centres and Special Educational Needs Provision (SEN).

Our STEM engagement strategy for schools aligns its activities with school curricula, providing interactive workshops, guest speakers and project-based learning to develop children’s curiosity in real-world energy concepts, while inspiring interest in STEM subjects. What’s more, as a Community Liaison Officer on the Morecambe project, I am trained as an accredited STEM Ambassador tailoring my workshops to each school and each individual year group taking part in the sessions.

It is well known that STEM subjects can provide useful foundation knowledge for a skillset suited to certain roles in the renewable energy sector. Working towards addressing the expected skills gap projected to follow the growth of UK offshore wind is a key consideration as we build awareness of the opportunities that lie ahead in our communities.

Equity in engagement

As part of the planning behind the engagement programme, our team map socioeconomic factors to ensure we are reaching communities associated with the project area who may face additional barriers to access the opportunities and knowledge our school engagement workshops pass on to audiences.

Winds of change – Getting hands on

Complementing school curricula, the workshops introduce the concept of climate change, associated legislation and climate goals, before moving into what we mean by renewable energy. Below provides something of an overview to typical session content as we move through looking into wind power generation in detail. The workshops explore ideas such as:

• What are the differences between onshore and offshore wind
• How do we convert wind into energy?
• How are engineers taking inspiration from nature (biomimicry) in turbine design, windfarm planning and operation?

Workshops see students enjoy building their own wind assets – using paper wind turbines for younger children and our model kits for older school pupils to demonstrate how blade shape and pitch interact with wind speed and direction to produce tangible results.

In further education sessions with older pupils, the project team discuss how windfarm design factors maximising yield through design as part of a discussion on Betz’s law (wind energy physics in action).

The importance of Health and Safety

The workshop typically conclude with an important Health and Safety focus on Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), with class volunteers getting to try on a high-vis jackets and helmets.

In addition to the project team’s work in school settings, I have also participated in a range of career and climate themed events across England’s north west.