Hello Stephenson Memorial, 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.
Stephenson Memorial Primary website
Today both Year 6 classes 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.
Inmarsat building, Wikimedia Commons
This afternoon, families joined the NUSTEM team for a drop in structural engineering activity. We challenged you to design and build the strongest bridge possible, and to test this by hanging 100g weights from the centre of the bridge to see how much weight it would hold before it collapsed.
How did you do?
For more building activities to try at home using inexpensive, household resources, click here.
What is a structural engineer?
Structural engineers are focused on all aspects concerned with buildings and built structures, such as houses, hospitals, office blocks, bridges, oil rigs, ships and aircraft. They work to understand, predict and measure aspects such as the strength, stability and how rigid buildings are. They also work to develop new designs or modify the designs of buildings or structures which are to be constructed and are responsible for choosing the appropriate materials, such as concrete, steel, timber and masonry, to meet design specification.
Attributes: observant, committed, tenacious
There are many different kinds of engineers. We have lots more career information and activities related to different types of engineers for you to try at home. Click here to find out more about wind energy engineers, click here to learn about sound engineers, and click here to discover more about mechanical engineers.
This morning Year 5 became astronomers and found out about the development of the telescope throughout history and women in astronomy. They also discovered what stars are made from and how astronomers know this by analysing the light from the stars. To find out more about astronomy and to try some activities at home, click here.
