Last night the NUSTEM team were delighted to receive the 2025 William Thompson, Lord Kelvin Gold Medal from the Institute of Physics at an event hosted at The Oval, London. The citation read: For pioneering new methodologies and pedagogies in physical sciences outreach and engagement, taking a nuanced, long-term approach to supporting children’s physics and […]
We’re making a bit of a habit of this: NUSTEM have won the STEM Initiative Award from the Educate North Awards, which celebrate achievements across Higher Education, Further Education, and Sixth Form sectors in the North of England. Specifically, the STEM Communities project on which we’ve been collaborating with Woodhorn Museum in Ashington has won. […]
Well. It’s happening. It’s taken us a while to really get geared up, but now suddenly dozens and dozens of Connected puppets are out in the world. Thanks to our new friends at Northumberland Libraries we’ve been out west to Haltwhistle, up north to Wooler, and a couple more schools roped themselves in for good […]
We’ve been delighted to welcome more puppets to the Connect network this term, with workshops running in several schools. Our pace of delivery is picking up now, with our colleagues at the Life Science Centre slotting loads of sessions in for the new year. If your school (or library, community centre, or other venue) is […]
A small gallery of photos from Connect pilot workshops.
If you haven’t seen this image doing the rounds – sorry, we don’t know who originated it – you very likely recognise the situation anyway. It’s been several months and this song is still everywhere. Including, it turns out, space. Above, our favourite pastiche version, We Don’t Talk About Pluto. Very, very well done Jon […]
Connect is an Internet of Things digital making project, and it’s easy to assume that coding is the hard part. But if we’ve got Connect’s coding system right – and we don’t yet know if we have, but bear with me – then the most challenging part becomes the mechanism. We’ve known this for some time, […]
It’s happening. It’s genuinely happening. More than that – it works! This half-term we’ve been testing out parts of Connect with some willing guinea pigs families at Battle Hill Primary School. There are a lot of hidden technical bits and some really quite shaky code involved in keeping Connect devices talking to each other (I’m allowed […]
As our partner primary schools well know, the sharp end of NUSTEM starts with in-school workshops. We do many other things, but workshops are a key part of us meeting and working with schools and teachers, showcasing how we think practical investigation and careers ideas can be incorporated into science lessons, and prompting dialogue to […]
Northumbria researcher and NUSTEM stalwart Dr. Kate Winter is joining a day of celebration of the 200th anniversary of the discovery of Antarctica. Organised by our friends at the Festival of Nature, the day will be held entirely on Facebook, featuring film showings, story readings, presentations and Q&A. There’s a great line-up of scientists, wildlife […]
