A Greneway pupil inspecting substrate during the Johnson Matthey site visit
In February 2015 pupils from Greneway Middle school, Royston,
visited the Johnson Matthey site at Royston as the culmination of their
Children Challenging Industry (CCI) experience. During their visit the children
visited the Technology Centre to find out what catalysts are and what they do
and made their own wash coats (the active part of the catalyst). This was
followed by a tour of the site where they saw robots applying wash coat to the
substrate.
The visit demonstrated how their school activities (the
process of developing a good bubble mixture had much in common with the
development and testing of wash coats) were directly related to work on the
site.
A recent report on the impact of the CCI project in Royston
schools demonstrated that children who are shown how science works in the ‘real
world’ (in this case in industry) show a greater understanding of science and the
possibility that they could have a future career using science.
Teachers taking part in CCI reported the greatest impact as
being:
·
Improvement of children’s investigative skills and
group work
·
Range of teaching ideas and the practical activities
·
The CIEC Advisory Teacher’s expert knowledge of
science and the industrial content of the activities.
The majority of teachers felt their knowledge of teaching
science had improved, the class sessions linked well to industry, the site
visit was an important component of the experience and that they would use the
written resources again. The CCI project also fulfilled their expectations.
At the end of the CCI intervention the teachers showed
greater understanding of the interesting jobs available in industry and the economic
benefits of industry.
Of the children who participated:
·
Over 80% enjoyed the investigations, learned something
new and enjoyed the challenges
·
Over 70% liked learning about industry and now like
science more.
The activities the Greneway children worked on in school
were:
Below are some observations the children made following their
visit to the JM site (positive comments far outweigh any negative comments).
What the children
said:
“I liked it all because I was learning new
things.”
“I enjoyed the ketchup bit because it was
really fun and they explained it clearly.”
“I liked
watching the robots.”
“The robots
move like humans.”
In response to what
did you enjoy the most:
“seeing the
robots and learning what they do and sorting out the catalyst.”
“making the
experiment with all of the liquids.”
“seeing the
robots sorting out the catalysts.”
“looking at
the cars.”
In response to what
did you enjoy the least:
“Walking and
walking upstairs and apart from that nothing.”
Deb McGarrity, Royston Site and Community Coordinator commented, "The difficulties of attracting young people
into careers in science have been well documented in recent years. From
this perspective, I think it is important that schools in our area understand
what Johnson Matthey actually does, and how exciting and varied a career in
science can be”.
