About Living laboratory: Climate action
Living Lab: Climate Action aimed to inspire school pupils with how to harness the power of engineering to build more sustainable, climate resilient communities.
Overall the project reached 395 Pupils and 26 teachers from 7+ schools across 12 engagements. In addition to this it worked with 45 pupils from longitudinal programmes, including Seren Academy in Wales that aims to inspire learners across Wales to have the ambition, capability, and curiosity to fulfil their potential, regardless of socioeconomic background.
The project team hosted 1 larger public event as part of Cambridge Festival, attracting 200+ interactions from a wide age range of children, their parents and other visitors over 4 hours as part of a larger celebration of the work of the University: Engineering sustainable communities | Cambridge Festival
19 engineers (68.4% female) were involved mainly from Civil Engineering and were a mixture of PhD researchers, Postdocs and Engineers in industry.
Participating pupils did authentic research projects on flood resilience and energy usage in their school, gathering data using smart sensors and making energy-saving recommendations that they presented to their teachers and engineers at a mini-conference during a visit to Cambridge University. This aspirational visit included hands-on activities challenging pupils to make engineering decisions, design and flood-proof homes, and learn about Sustainable Urban Drainage systems.
Key outcomes & Impacts
The outreach doesn’t have to be perfect, and the most important thing is for them to be fun and inspiring. While the aim was for an ambitious, data centric research programme, the real highlights were the personal interactions with young people from all different backgrounds and conversations between themselves and engineers, focusing around being creative problem solvers and making the world a better place for everyone.
This was the first time most pupils had ever visited a university, or thought about engineering and was a really eye-opening experience. 90% said they had enjoyed or really enjoyed the day, with 77% reporting that taking part had made them want to do more engineering activities, and 66% wanting to find out more about studying engineering.
Broadly, pupils felt positive about engineering, 79% reporting that if they wanted to, they could become an engineer. Highlights of the visit included touring a department where we met a researcher and saw inside the labs; talking to engineers and the activities.
Living laboratory team leads at Churchill College where the University of Cambridge experience will be hosted