News / Education
Company gains funding to teach STEM through card game
A project teaching engineering using card games has been granted funding to roll out to schools.
Megawatt, created by Bristol community interest company Curieus Games, was awarded an Ingenious grant by the Royal Academy of Engineering, giving it £30,000 of funding.
The money will be used to deliver workshops to 20 schools nationally, including four in Bristol, teaching students about energy systems, engineering problem-solving, and careers linked to the clean energy transition.
The quirk is that it will all be done through games.
Principally, students will have a go at the card game Megawatt, in which players try to build an electricity grid.
The funding will allow Curieus Games to recruit and train 20 engineers to deliver full-day workshops to around 1,600 young people.
The specific Bristol schools involved are yet to be confirmed.
Students will be taught how electricity is generated, how energy systems work and the challenges involved in reaching net zero
Titled ‘Discover energy through play’, the project will focus particularly on reaching communities who are underrepresented in engineering and STEM careers.
They will be taught how electricity is generated, how energy systems work and the challenges involved in reaching net zero.
More than 40 teachers will be trained to keep using Megawatt resources in lessons following the workshops.
Megawatt founder Miguel Trenkel-Lopez said: “There’s a lot of climate anxiety in schools so we’re presenting the solutions to them and the careers they can get into where they can make a difference.
“All the teachers we speak to know that young people are really interested in this topic and they want to have more resources they can trust. There’s a lot of resources out there and they’re not always well researched.”
Miguel emphasised the importance of reaching out to underrepresented communities, including women and people on low incomes.
“Diversity in people always leads to better outcomes,” he said. “The more kinds of people are working on a problem the more likely it is that we can solve that problem.
Curieus Games is also running Megawatt workshops at a home education hub in Bristol and for young offenders using a £20,000 grant from the National Lottery Community Fund.
All photos: Megawatt
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