Inspire Sustainability Public Engagement Team
Based in UWE Bristol's School of Engineering.
Who we are
The Inspire Sustainability team is based in UWE Bristol’s School of Engineering, with the aim of encouraging diversity, inclusivity and sustainability through STEM and climate outreach. Currently funded by the Royal Academy of Engineering, the West of England Combined Authority and the Office for Students. Our projects link to regional goals to act on the Climate and Nature Emergency.
Using curriculum-linked engineering and sustainability outreach and careers support, we are connecting children to real-life, diverse engineering role models to widen participation and aspirations for STEM and green careers.
The team is led by Dr Laura Fogg-Rogers and includes the SCU team of:
Engineering a sustainable future
To achieve a zero-carbon global economy, everything we make, transport, and power will need to be completely re-engineered. This transition to a new economy and society needs to be in partnership with our diverse communities and education networks.
We need to employ design thinking to understand the problems, emphasise with community needs, imagine creative and collaborative solutions, and prototype and test these innovative ideas and educational partners.
Working together, we can achieve a zero-carbon economy for the benefit of all.
Inspire Sustainability projects
School workshops
All our free workshops are run by trained outreach coordinators and feature real-life STEM Ambassadors and students. We can deliver in school in a regular classroom or invite classes to visit us at the School of Engineering in our purpose-built classroom.
Curiosity Connections
Our team runs the Curiosity Connections primary STEM education hub for the South West since 2017. Connecting primary school teachers and STEM ambassadors to one another and to the wealth of STEM opportunities nationally and regionally via our website, newsletter and events.
MAKERS
MAKERS (Making And Knowledge Exchange for Repair and Sustainability) aims to improve belonging for diverse engineering students at UWE Bristol, through developing connections with local Maker and Repair communities in the West of England. Through co-development and repair workshops with local groups, students will be brought together in a purposeful and practical environment, enabling student community formation to generate peer support and friendship.
Women Like Me mentoring scheme
Established by Dr Laura Fogg-Rogers and Dr Laura Hobbs in 2018, our team manage the Women Like Me women engineers mentoring programme. This unique programme pairs up Junior engineers with senior engineers for mentoring, to aid retention of female engineers, and the Junior engineers go into schools to inspire the next generation of female engineers. The scheme includes mentoring and outreach training as well as networking opportunities. Since 2022, Women Like Me has partnered with STEMazing to provide additional support and training for mentors and mentees.
Temple Quarter in Minecraft
Our team is supporting Bristol City Council and partners to investigate children’s ideas for the Temple Quarter development. We use our Minecraft workshop with unique Bristol worlds for children to build what they want to see in their neighbourhoods.
Curious stories for curious children
Our team curated a list of STEM-stereotype busting books for children in 2019. Since then, they have coordinated training sessions in public reading for STEM ambassadors, then deployed those STEM ambassadors in schools and at events across the city for Bristol’s Storytale Festival.
UWE Bristol Engineering's Family Fun Day
Our team established the inspirational Family Fun day and manage the event each year on a Saturday in June/July. Families are invited to attend and explore hands-on STEM activities.
South Gloucestershire Library partner
To encourage local children to use their libraries, our team runs Engineering Curiosity workshops sessions for local schools at libraries.
Work experience
Each year in June, we support a group of Year 10 students to explore Engineering as a career, by providing a range of activities in different engineering disciplines.
Climate Action Hub
Our team runs Engineering’s climate action hub, practically linking to the University’s Sustainability Hub to bring together ideas and action from students and staff, and supporting community action modules that link students as consultants to work on community problems within assessments.
Our research contributes to external programmes such as Bristol Green Capital Partnership, local councils, and community groups.
Festival and conference activities
The team regularly take hands-on activities to local conferences (e.g. CLF Eco conference) and festivals, including the Cheltenham Science Festival, Swindon STEAM, Somerscience, Festival of Nature, WOMAD.
Knowledge Booster CPD sessions
Short evening CPD sessions for primary school teachers tackling tricky curriculum topics. Each event had a teacher and a researcher/expert in the field speaking.
Bristol's history and future air travel
In collaboration with Air League and Aerospace Bristol, we coordinated days out for children to discover the engineering past at Aerospace Bristol, followed by a trip to UWE Bristol to design solutions for the future of air travel in Minecraft worlds of Filton Airport.
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