A NORTH-EAST school is celebrating success in a national competition aimed at inspiring young people to design sustainable solutions to support the planet.
A team of four Year 8 boys from Parkside Academy, at Willington, won the regional finals of the Solutions For The Planet’s Big Ideas competition, held at Sunderland University, and now go into the national finals.
Jenson Yardley, Finlay Weir, Reece Ross-Hawkins, and Samuel Shotton tackled their concerns about food insecurity by producing a brilliant design for an automated, solar-powered tractor to win the North-East final.
A team of Year 8 girls – Esmay Jones-Bowen, Ava Boughey, Alexa Martindale, Martha Manning, and Evie Cunningham – also did the school proud by making the regional finals.
The school is part of the Advance Learning Partnership trust, and the project was led by geography teacher, Megan Baker, alongside science teacher, Zoe Bilton.
Miss Baker said: “We are exceptionally proud of both teams. Reaching the regional finals of such a prestigious competition is testament to their drive, passion, innovative thinking and belief in their ideas.”
As well as coming up with a design solution, the teams had to create a comprehensive business plan, including details about how they would finance and market their products.
The boys’ team now plan to develop their entry ahead of the national finals at the Palace of Westminster on June 26. As well as contacting farmers to “sell” their idea, they also intend to get in touch with Jeremy Clarkson to see if it can be featured on hit TV programme Clarkson’s Farm.
Around 60 Parkside students started working on the Big Ideas programme last December, with visits by Amy Akroyd, from Solutions For The Planet, and Alexandra Brightman, from Northern Gas, one of the businesses supporting the initiative.
Solutions For The Planet is a social enterprise, working nationally to build partnerships between businesses and schools to promote sustainability, STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and maths), and employability skills.
The Big Ideas Programme is a national STEM and enterprise programme focused on finding creative solutions to sustainability issues.
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