The OPITO Schools Hydrogen Project came to a very happy conclusion last week at Cromer Academy, who managed to squeeze in an assembly during an already action-packed final week of term.
The assembly was the culmination of a competition organised by EEEGR’s Skills for Energy initiative, along with Kate Finlay, D&T Subject Specialist Associate at the Inspiration Trust. The competition was held across a number of schools from the Inspiration Trust, with students tasked with creating a model of how they could produce hydrogen using recycled greywater on their school premises. The projects were presented on the OPITO stand at EEEGR’s SNS conference in May, when they were grateful for feedback from industry partners.
The assembly last week kicked off with a quick overview of the energy industry and the competition. Then the student team, supported by John Nutt (Curriculum Lead for D&T and Sustainability Lead), showed their project to their peers, focusing on how and why they came up with their innovative idea to filter the water through their school’s astro-pitch.
We were impressed by the range of different approaches taken by the schools, the transferrable skills demonstrated by the students in working together on their projects, and the confidence they displayed when engaging with employers at SNS. There is definitely potential for the practical real-life application of some of their ideas at their schools.
However, there could only be one winner. On Monday, we revealed that the Cromer Academy team were our overall winners of the competition and the recipient’s of OPITO’s generous prize of £5000, to be spent on resources for the D&T Department, to enhance STEM teaching and learning.
Students were also given a certificate and a copy of Yasmin Ali’s book, ‘Power Up: An Engineer’s Adventures into Sustainable Energy’.
This has been an incredible project and we hope to do more of this in the next academic year. In the meantime, thank you to all of the teachers who supported students on this competition and well done to all of the students who took part.