An important part of NUSTEM’s role is supporting academics in Northumbria University to translate and communicate their research to new audiences. We first worked with Northumbria University’s maths academic Matteo Sommacal during the sixth-form evening lecture, where he fascinated year 11 and 12 students with the complex beauty of fractal geometry. In the summer term […]
Start Small; Dream Big pilot At NUSTEM we have been waiting for news from the Start Small; Dream Big pilot with eager anticipation. Start Small; Dream Big is the Department for Education’s primary school careers programme led by the Careers & Enterprise Company (CEC). Between 2022 and 2025 schools in Education Investment areas, including our […]
We have worked together with the North East Local Enterprise Partnership (North East LEP) to produce a report, which calls for a nationwide approach to providing careers education in primary schools. Statutory guidance says only schools catering for pupils in Key Stage 3 (aged 11 to 14) and above need to offer careers education and […]
This is a story about evaluation, why good evaluation can be really hard to achieve and what we wish we had known when we started out. NUSTEM was originally Think Physics, and we were set up in 2014 to develop and deliver a three year project with 15 primary and 15 secondary schools. The vision […]
In September last year Carol and I had the pleasure of visiting lovely Uppsala in Sweden to attend the Frontiers in Education 2022 Conference and present the findings of our latest research. We presented papers on our two favourite topics attributes and aspirations: Carol on the self-identified attributes of STEM professionals, and me on the […]
The European Southern Observatory is organising an Astronomy Camp at the beautiful (if awkwardly-named) Astronomical Observatory of the Autonomous Region of the Aosta Valley, in the Italian Alps. It’s pictured above, and sounds like an impressive place to hang out for a week of lectures, hands-on activities, observing sessions… and winter sports and excursions. Here […]
This May will provide us with a fantastic opportunity to observe a transit of Mercury. It should be possible to view the eclipse from your school or home, but we will need to keep our fingers crossed for good weather. What’s a transit of Mercury? Like a solar eclipse, when the Moon obscures the Sun, a transit occurs […]
Each March, British Science Week celebrates the awesomeness of science, technology, engineering and maths. Over this year’s week, from 11th – 18th March, Think Physics joined in the fun by opening up specially-designed workshops and lectures to schools from across the North East. The result was a fantastically action-packed and rewarding week of workshops. We had Key Stage 2 […]
The Robotic Challenge is a curriculum-linked programme run by Tomorrow’s Engineers that sees students (11-14) working together in teams to solve real-world engineering, technology and computing challenges. Teamwork, robots, design, discovery, fun and loads of LEGO are all part of the mix, as are real-world challenges, teacher support and some great prizes. Students learn how […]
Think Physics joined forces with The Holy Biscuit gallery on 15th and 16th of May to contribute to another action-packed NewcastleGateshead Late Shows. This collaboration was in honour of the International Year of Light and a timely addition to Northumbria University’s UKMHD Conference this May. The result of the collaboration was 8 Minutes 20 Seconds, an […]
