Hello Balliol, we’re NUSTEM. We’re based at Northumbria University, and we work across the region supporting children, families and teachers in exploring science, technology, engineering and maths. We’re particularly keen to help people recognise that careers in these STEM subjects are available to them.
On this page you’ll find a summary of the things we’ve done with your school, and links to follow-up activities you can do at home.
We were back working with families for a second day today, with more families working together to design, build and test wind turbine blades to see which was most effective. For more activities to try at home, click here.
After that, Year 5 found out how environmental modellers collect and use data to predict the future. To find out more about environmental modellers, how to help the environment and for modelling activities you can try at home, click here.
We are busy at Balliol this week, with workshops over two days. Today Reception Class learned all about magnetic and non-magnetic materials by investigating magnets. To find out more, click here.
Year 2 became design engineers and learned all about recycling, reusing and reducing in their sustainability workshop. Visit National Geographic kids and NASA Climate Kids to read more about global warming and the changes you can make at home to help prevent climate change.
After that, Year 3 became palaeontologists, exploring fossils and using pollen samples to investigate how the earth’s climate has changed over millions of years . For more information and activities to try at home, click here.
After lunch, Year 6 became environmental planners and used maps to discover how finding out about the past can help us to predict the future. To find out more about environmental planners, click here. Year 5 and 6 also looked at maps to see how Longbenton has changed over the last two centuries. To have a look at similar historical maps, follow this link:
Then after school, families worked together to design, build and test wind turbine blades to see which was most effective. For more activities to try at home, click here.
Today Year 6 came into our Think Lab at Northumbria University to become cryptographers. This involved encrypting and decrypting messages and discovering how this keeps us safe online.
For more information about careers which use cryptography, activities you can try at home and a secret message to decode from NUSTEM, click here.
