Bishop Young Academy are delighted to announce that a team of our Year 8 students have won the Northern Regional Finals of the Big Idea - Solutions for the Planet competition; of the 12 participating teams, 4 came from our Academy.
The Big Ideas Programme is a STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) and enterprise programme with a focus on sustainability issues that matter to our young people. Delivered in secondary schools across the UK and using employee volunteers from our Business Partner Network as mentors, the Big Ideas Programme harnesses creativity, encourages team work, develops STEM and wider employability skills, and gives young people a voice in the dialogue around sustainability, linking their ideas to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
The team’s Big Idea, the Fire Fighter Drone (FFD) was developed in response to the increasing number of forest and wildfires that are happening because of climate change and is driven by a desire to save and protect our environment. The drone would assist in putting out the fires with the use of water/carbon dioxide tanks and fertiliser and therefore help with the eventual restoration of the woodlands and habitats in the moors of Yorkshire and the much larger forest areas found in Australia and America.
The winning team will now be representing the North of England as the Big Ideas Competition Nation Final, which is taking place at the Houses of Parliament in June, where they will be joined by a selection of business partner employee mentors from this year’s programme. Amongst the audience, there will also be teachers, parents, MPs and other special guests, our exceptional judges, inspiring keynote speakers, and a panel of sustainability and entrepreneurial experts.
Rachael Cole, Head of School at Bishop Young Academy said, ‘we are so incredibly proud of all of the teams who entered. They are truly exceptional young people and the perfect embodiment of the Bishop Character education that they receive at our school. We wish Luqman, Sekander, Sumit and Jasdeep the best of luck at the National Final. Their FFD idea was a worthy winner and we hope that they can replicate their win next month. Go Team BYA!’
