Over the past few months, we’ve been working with Pembrokeshire students on real-world science through our META Education Project. The project gives them the unique opportunity to design and test experiments in real sea conditions.
Pembrokeshire Coastal Forums Programme Manager for Education Skills and Stakeholder Engagement Tim Brew said:
“When I was 10, I loved The Great Egg Race, Tomorrow’s World, and those Blue Peter competitions where you sent in an experiment for astronauts to test in space. The idea that a young person like me could ask a question or come up with an idea that the experts hadn’t thought of yet was genuinely exciting!
Pembrokeshire Coastal Forum (PCF) doesn’t have a space station, but I can see our Marine Energy Test Area (META) from my desk at work.
Wouldn’t it be awesome if local kids could try an experiment in there…”
META Education Project
We are now in our second year of the META Education Project.
This project gives learners from Pembrokeshire’s schools the chance to explore marine renewables through practical workshops. Students design experiments that are then carried out to gather data, before working out what that data means. Along the way, the learners have access to support and advice from people working in the sector. Their knowledge and enthusiasm for sharing their work brings these projects to life.
This is the story of the most recent experiment, which brought together three groups of 10-year-olds, their teachers, SPARC Alliance students, a group of apprentices, an industry research organization, and local businesses.
Floating Platform – Design and fabrication
The platform used in the most recent experiments was designed by the Marine Energy Engineering Centre of Excellence and fabricated by Pembrokeshire College Apprentices. The platform was designed based on a model used in research. The apprentices skilfully transformed plans and steel sheets into the impressive seaworthy platform, ready for the pupils’ to test.
The floating platform is a great asset to take ideas from the classroom to real-world testing.
Experiment Design – Year 6 Pembroke Dock Community School
Three classes in Year 6 from Pembroke Dock Community School took part. In the first sessions, pupils took part in a challenge to construct a floating platform using the materials provided. Each group could earn extra budget by providing a diagram of what they would build and costing their materials before they started.
Pupils used what they had learned to build a better model from readily available materials in time for our next visit. The learners were really excited to share their ideas with Arne Voegler (MEECE), Sean Evans (Blue Gem), and Gavin Williams (Mainstay), and they loved watching the three experts collaborate with them as they demonstrated their designs in the test tank.
Pupils put forward their proposals for sea testing . There were many great ideas but adding weights, drag plates or both were all popular suggestions. Pupils applied their science knowledge, identifying the different types variables and describing how to make sure it was a fair test.
Experiment Design – SPARC Alliance Students
The pupils from Ysgol Caer Elen, Haverfordwest High and Ysgol Bro Gwaun were challenged to design and construct a scaled-down model of the META floating wind platform, putting their creativity and problem-solving skills to the test.
With expert guidance from Michelle Hitches (Apollo), Sean Evans (Blue Gem Wind), Rhys Morgan, and Rob Hillier (PCC), teams earned tokens based on their designs—allowing them to ‘purchase’ materials and tools to bring their ideas to life.
The next stage was to review and refine their platforms to improve stability before putting their designs to test in the water!
Experiment Testing and Data Collection
META Operations Manager Saul Young created a plan to conduct the experiment safely. The experiment looked to investigate which modifications designed by the student most improved the stability of the platform.
Data was collected using the META’s SOFAR Buoys. These enabled the motion of the buoy secured to the floating platform to be compared to the motion of the sea throughout the afternoon of testing the different modifications, which included adding different amounts of weight, and different size drag plates, at different heights.
Which modification do you think had the most effect on stability?
The data was then simplified so the pupils could analyse it and determine which of their interventions worked best. Each class calculated the average stability of their platform compared to the control experiment. It is fair to say that in most school science experiments we know what will happen, so I hope we managed to share the joy of not knowing but doing our best to find out. The groups all came together to compare their results.
With Thanks to Rudders Boatyard
Rudders Boat Yard provide the essential service needed to operate META, and their support and use of their pontoon was very much appreciated.
