Three Sixth Form girls from Mayfield School have won a prestigious national engineering prize for their plan to reduce carbon emissions and make their school, and Mayfield village, more sustainable. The Times discovers more…
Staff and students at Mayfield School, an all-girls independent senior school located in the village of the same name in East Sussex, are celebrating a prestigious placing for three of its Six Form girls in a national contest.
Budding engineers Megan, Elizabeth and Isabella entered the national ICE CityZen STEM competition after taking up its challenge of asking students to create a viable and practical solution to tackle the increasing issue of rising energy costs for their local community and school.
The challenge the STEM (Science Technology Engineering Maths) students faced was how to reduce the energy costs required to heat their historic school and local buildings – many of which are listed – while at the same time cutting carbon emissions.
Their inspired solution was to harness the power of geothermal energy, which is renewable, in the form of ground source heat pumps, providing an innovative and non-invasive solution to the problem.
The girls’ clever project idea was very well received by the judges and ended up being placed second out of 140 schools from across the UK who entered this year’s CityZen contest.
This is a UK-wide competition in which student teams learn about civil engineering through completing virtual game challenges. They then take the lessons they have learned and apply them to their own civil engineering proposal and submit a video entry to CityZen explaining their idea.
“The girls’ proposal involved pumps being installed, with excess energy sold to local residents and businesses, improving the sustainability of the village in the process,” a Mayfield School spokesperson told the Times.
Lower Sixth pupil and competition participant Elizabeth added: “Taking part in the ICE CityZen competition was an incredible experience. I was able to gain invaluable skills throughout the competition process as we problem-solved to find solutions to meet the needs of our local community. I am extremely proud of our achievements, and it was a great honour to go to the ICE headquarters in London, where I realised the importance that civil engineers have in shaping our future.”
Mayfield’s Head of Physics, Dr Darragh Corvan, commented: “We are delighted Megan, Elizabeth and Isabella have been recognised for their innovative project proposal. At Mayfield, we encourage all our students to pursue their passions and we actively encourage girls to study STEM subjects and pursue careers in engineering, both of which have traditionally been male-dominated.
“We aim to break the stereotype by providing a range of activities and projects to support the girls’ learning within an environment in which it’s encouraged to experiment and make mistakes, in order to learn and progress. We congratulate the girls on their achievement.”
