North-east school pupils recently visited the University to compete in the regional heat of a national competition.
The University hosted the regional Go4SET Celebration and Assessment Day (CAD), which saw pupils from across Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire compete for a place in the Go4SET Scottish final in May.
Kemnay Academy's Love Every Drop project, supported by Balfour Beatty Kintore, was selected by the judges as the winner of the Best Overall Project. The team was presented with a trophy and a cheque for £250 by Provost of Aberdeenshire, Jill Webster and will compete in the final at the Scottish Parliament on the May 16.
Aberdeenshire Provost Jill Webster said: “I was delighted to be at the final event of the 2013-14 Go4SET challenge and I hope the pupils, teachers and mentors have enjoyed working on the challenge.
"It is great to see a range of city and shire schools participating in this exciting project and incredibly positive to see local companies sponsoring and lending their expertise to support the teams through the 10 weeks. I hope the mentors have found it an interesting and worthwhile experience.
"I would encourage young people to continue to study STEM (Science, Engineering, Maths and Technology) subjects in school to create the highly skilled workforce of the future that the prosperity of this region relies on.”
At the event the students displayed their individual projects and solutions to a group of assessors and discussed their projects with guests attending the event. The other award winners at the event were:
Torry Academy supported by Balfour Beatty Aberdeen City, who won the Best Team Work Award and a cheque for £100; Banchory Academy supported by Apache North Sea who won the Students Choice Award and a cheque for £50.
The Go4SET Water project began at the launch event in November and the teams of six 12 to 14 year olds (S2) continued to work with their teacher on the challenging 10-week project, while being mentored by scientists and engineers selected from the complete spectrum of STEM disciplines. They also gained industrial experience with their company in order to derive a more thorough understanding about their project. Work-related learning and team working lies at the heart of the Go4SET experience.
Duncan McSporran, EDT Director for Scotland, said: “This dynamic and innovative curriculum based programme has proved to significantly change the perception of young people on careers and opportunities within science and engineering industries.”