Published: Mar 5, 2024 by Nick Homer and Morag Fotheringham
SatSchool hosted a stall at the STEM careers event at Our Dynamic Earth on the 5th of March.
The event was enjoyed by six hundred secondary school pupils from across Edinburgh & the Lothians, looking for inspiration for future careers in STEM. Doing their best to provide this inspiration, Morag, Calum and Nick engaged with hundreds of pupils throughout the day, talking about their own career paths and scientific research, and playing a variety of fun Earth Observation games such as “location guesser”, “match the satscenes” and the always popular floor-mat treasure hunt.
“It’s a rare treat to get to talk about your research with young and excited minds, often asking the most unlikely questions and getting you to think about your work in a new way! I hope we were able to inspire them to consider pursuing careers in STEM and remote sensing, and to use their skills to address some of the most pressing environmental issues of our time” - Nick.
The event was hosted by over 20 organisations looking for the next generation of STEM enthusiasts to tackle some of the world’s most pressing issues. Interactive showcases and demonstrations including VR headsets, computer simulations and state-of-art robotics highlighted how Scottish organisations are at the forefront of STEM R&D and have many exciting career opportunities. Pupils were able to visit the Dynamic Earth interactive exhibits, reinforcing the importance of researching environmental and climate change, which the SatSchool team were particularly keen to highlight as an important subject.
“It was great to see so many students engaging with the different career options on display. Many students showed an interest in what working with satellite data entails, I think our giant satellite image mat helped! And readily engaged in discussions surrounding how it can be used to look at our planet and investigate changes. ” - Morag
