Hands-on learning seaside style!

Last week, over 900 children from primary schools across south Yorkshire were given the task of building part of a seaside town at this year’s ‘Build It’ event at Kelham Island Museum in Sheffield.

The children were asked to design and build a seaside town using materials including cardboard, felt, sticky tape, wood, paper, pipe cleaners and cotton bobbins to name but a few. Each team chose a well known building from the seaside out of a hat and had just three hours to build it together with a fairground attraction and a means of transport. Once complete, the buildings were placed onto a 4×5m floor map and gradually the town was built by all the teams taking part in the event.

Business & Education South Yorkshire, the Centre for Science Education at Sheffield Hallam University and Sheffield Industrial Museums Trust worked in partnership to organise Build It that has been running for several years.

The teams of schoolchildren aged five to 11 years old from over 90 primary schools had the pick of several seaside landmarks, including a lighthouse, café, hotel, post office, place of worship, fish and chip shop, transport interchange, tourist information centre, lifeboat station, hospital, supermarket, a block of flats and a bank.

The schools involved from Barnsley included St Helen’s Catholic Primary, Keresforth Primary, Holy Cross Deanery C of E, Wilthorpe Junior, Ward Green Primary, Wilthorpe Infant School and Burton Road Primary. Teachers and advisers from industry were on hand to help the budding builders to design and construct their projects.

Mary Milburn from Business & Education South Yorkshire explains: ‘Build It had a theme that was more exciting than ever this year. The event helped encourage teamwork and communication between children, but also gave them a chance to work alongside experts within the construction sector. It was a great opportunity for young people from across South Yorkshire and North Derbyshire to gain some practical hands-on experience of engineering and technology, while being involved in a fun, interactive activity.’