Wallace Awarded STEM Funding

Written by | Frontpage, News

The Wallace High School has been awarded an amazing £12,000 by the South Eastern Education and Library Board as part of the STEM project, which aims to promote Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. The Lisburn school has designed an innovative programme which will run over the next three months and which involves not only pupils from Wallace but from the Lisburn learning community.

stemwebA group of twenty Lower Sixth students who are studying Physics, Maths and Technology are heading off to Disneyland Paris for four days to investigate the technology of rollercoasters whilst all Year 8 students are looking forward to taking part in technological trials and flight design workshops during a full day visit to W5.

Year 10 pupils will have the exciting opportunity to experience forensic science at first hand through a course run by Australian company XXX whilst Year 9 students are looking forward to Sentinus Science and Technology workshops in Queen’s University and the King’s Hall in early March.

Former Wallace students who are currently reading STEM related subjects at universities across the UK revisited their school last week for question and answer sessions regarding university life.

Work experience at the prestigious Rutherford Appleton laboratory in Oxford has been organised for two top physicists, Wallace’s Jonathan Crean and Chin Mun Soong from Friends School.

Next month’s Careers Convention in the Leisureplex which is organised by the Lisburn Business Education Partnership will involve a series of workshops open to students from all schools in the area. Staff from Bombardier, MS Digital, Almac Discovery and Sam Baird Opticians will chat to local students about their career plans.

Sixty local primary school children will also spend a day in Wallace, taking part in an interactive Maths workshop organised by Sentinus, with Wallace students having the opportunity to act as mentors.

Lois Stewart, coordinator of the project in Wallace commented, “We in Wallace are delighted to receive this additional funding which will undoubtedly help enthuse young people in the world of science, technology, mathematics and engineering. There is a clear need in Northern Ireland for additional expertise in these career areas and the innovative programme of events will hopefully engage our students and others from the Lisburn learning community.”

Last modified: January 27, 2009