And they’re off. Secondary school pupils from Aberdeen City and Shire have started out on a four-month project which will see them link up their school education with the practical challenges of the oil and gas industry.
As part of TechFest STEM In The Pipeline, 16 teams of senior pupils will use their skills in physics, maths, chemistry and geology to solve an oilfield challenge.
They will be tasked, out of school hours, with creating a field development plan, for a fictional STEM oilfield by December for judging and a prize giving.
Tasks will include subsurface work, production profiling, separator design, safety and the calculation of CO2 emissions.
The project, supported by BP, Chevron, E.ON E&P and ConocoPhillips, was launched at the University of Aberdeen, with pupils meeting their industry mentors and attending four hands-on workshops in geology, drilling and reservoir, finance and processing.
TechFest co-ordinator Lesley Weston said: “The STEM in the Pipeline project is a great way for secondary school pupils to put all of their knowledge and skills into practice to solve a problem which is relevant to the oil and gas industry.
“Along with the support of mentors and academics, the students will come together in small teams and each spend more than 40 extracurricular hours working on their project, which they will then present to the judges in December.
“Year on year the students excel in this project and always demonstrate very high levels of passion, intelligence and ingenuity.”
TechFest is a charity based at the University of Aberdeen. It aims to promote science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) activities to young people and the wider community.
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