On Thursday 28 September Portsmouth High School hosted visiting primary schools from the local area this week for a STEM Technology Challenge Day. The Year 5 and 6 girls were challenged to design, build and test a sustainable transport system which involved them in thinking, planning, constructing and presenting on the day.

Ten teams of girls from Gomer Junior, Hambledon Primary, Mengham Juniors, Northern Parade Juniors, St Swithun’s Primary and Oakwood School took part.

The girls were told that an eco-friendly train is required for a new bridge link from Gunwharf to Gosport.  Their task was to create the travel company branding and design a vehicle carriage that will run on the test track.

Mr Graeme Field, Assistant Head and Head of Design and Technology at Portsmouth High School said:  ‘This is a fabulous opportunity for Year 5 and 6 girls from local junior schools to compete together to solve a real life challenge.  They were set a really difficult task to design the monorail train but also to think about how their rail company would be promoted.’

‘It’s been a great day and we have worked well together,’ added Lily Shearn, 9, from Gomer Junior School.  ‘Working as a team gives us more ideas which we can jumble up to make one giant, good idea.’

The teams then had to present their ideas to David Hill, Technology Faculty Outreach Coordinator from the University of Portsmouth who said:

The winning team was Gomer Junior School with their presentation on the Gosmouth Techtrain. Go Gomer and go gSTEM –  we are super proud of both of our teams.

We made it to The News too. http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/young-engineers-of-the-future-take-on-transport-task-1-7603301

Majority of text taken from High School website.