Wellacre Wins Go4Set STEM Challenge

Posted at 2:09 pm on 27th June, 2019

'The Business of Recycling’ wins Best Overall Project

Wellacre students have been named the ‘Best Overall Project’ winners of the Go4Set Scheme 2019.  The team were presented with the award at the EDT Industrial Cadet Graduation Day at Daresbury Laboratory on the 20th June 2019, which celebrated the 10-week engineering challenge.

Schools from across the North-West participated in the project aimed at 12 to 14 year olds that offers a fun, hands-on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) experience in a real-world setting.  As well as helping to develop their professional skills, the challenge also raises awareness of how studying these subjects can lead to a rewarding career.

At the launch event in March, each school team were partnered with an industrial mentor to assist in the industry and work-related learning in an enterprise context.  Wellacre were partnered with Mr Gavin Dunn from Cargill, the agricultural conglomerate and enjoyed a site visit as part of the scheme.

Wellacre’s team of students including Ethan, Year 7, Max, Leo and Harvey, Year 9, and Ewan and Ben, Year 10 worked alongside Teacher of Science, Mrs Siddall.  They opted for a food waste recycling project and learnt about biogas digesters from Mr Dunn to develop their initial concept into a full working model.  

Year 7 student, Ethan, said: 

“By working with our mentor, we learnt how a biogas digester functions and how we could use this as part of a working project for Wellacre school in the future.” 

Their project entitled ‘The Business of Recycling - Food Waste to Energy” had ambitious plans to use food waste to generate enough energy to ensure Wellacre could become self-sufficient in the future.  

Each student fulfilled a role within the winning team, from Design Engineer to Finance Manager, to develop a robust enterprise concept for the real world.  They worked together to present their idea to a panel of judges at the Go4Set Graduation event. 

Year 9 student, Leo, said:

“I enjoyed learning new communication and teamwork skills throughout the project, and improving my confidence by presenting our ideas.”

Mr Al-Rifai, a United Utilities Civil Engineer, provided outstanding feedback as part of the panel assessment:  

“This was an excellent project.  The students provided the final project layout in a successful way and the project is actually achievable in real life.  The team demonstrated a deep understanding of the fine details of their work and produced an impressive piece of work, which I would personally wish to see built in the future.”   

Year 9 student, Max, added:

“It was great creating a practical design that we could actually engineer for our project and for the future.” 

As well as winning the ‘Best Overall Project’, Wellacre students were presented with the Bronze Level Industrial Cadet for their participation in the Go4Set Scheme. 

Wellacre’s Principal, Mrs Wicks, said:

“We are extremely proud of this team of students. It is outstanding that they have been recognised for not only their STEM and enterprise knowledge, but also their work as a team.  Wellacre students are committed to making a difference to the local community and the environment; and this team took their food waste recycling project one step further and created a working model that could be employed by the school in the future.”