London, United Kingdom – September 07, 2021 – Exasol, the high-performance analytics database, has today announced that it has become a national funding partner for not-for-profit organization, Primary Engineer’s, STATWARS® competition. The competition aims to get primary and secondary pupils excited about data by embedding it into the heart of the educational system so they can more inherently develop a better understanding of its value in business and in everyday life. 

This is especially important today with recent research from Exasol raising questions about the role that education plays in preparing young people to enter an increasingly data-driven workplace. The study found that 16-to-21-year-olds don’t feel their schooling goes far enough in teaching them the data skills necessary for the workplace, despite half (49%) agreeing that working with data will play a major role in their future career. 

It is exactly for this reason that the objective of the STATWARS® competition directly aligns with Exasol’s own belief that this untapped potential could spur a revolution in the way data is used to transform the world around us. 

“We are thrilled to be partnering with STATWARS® to support its goal in inspiring and encouraging more young people to get excited by data,” said Peter Jackson, Chief Data & Analytics Officer, Exasol. “In today’s increasingly data-driven world, if we do not have the right people with the right skills who know how to process, interpret, and make data actionable, we are in danger of missing out on new ways to solve data challenges and push the boundaries as we know it. That’s why it was important for us to get involved in the STATWARS® competition. The next generation of young prodigies will be our future data champions, playing a significant role in helping to solve some of the world’s most important challenges.” 

STATWARS® is a free competition that is open to Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3 pupils. Running throughout the 2021/22 UK school year, the competition encompasses two data projects: STATWARS®: Climate Change Challenge, which empowers and educates young people to tackle climate change using data, and STATWARS® Film & TV, which encourages young people to engage with data by designing a film or TV series.

Both projects provide two entry points for young people to become excited about analyzing, interrogating, and presenting data. It does so by promoting an understanding of real-world use of mathematics, allowing pupils to follow simple or complex lines of enquiry from start to finish, conjecture relationships and generalizations in order to develop coherent, justified arguments that are based on thorough data analysis. 

STATWARS® provides free teaching resources including lesson plans, activity sheets and video tutorials to unlock the value of data, as well as live interviews with data experts and skills sessions from experts. By connecting with data specialists and industry professionals in the competition pupils access multiple opportunities to learn from employers about work, employment and the skills that are valued in the workplace.

Dr Susan Scurlock, Chief Executive at Primary Engineer, welcomed the partnership by saying: “We are delighted that Exasol is supporting the STATWARS® competition. Data analysis is a crucial aspect to many things in everyday life – often in unexpected and surprising ways. That was the starting point for the competition which gives young people the opportunity to analyze their own carbon impact or find the next hit TV show. It encourages them to collect and unpick data then use it to form their outcome and explain their decision. Having Exasol as one of our national partners allows us to link today’s data analysts with tomorrows – helping them build their knowledge and find out how much fun data really is!”

ENDS

About Exasol

Exasol was founded in 2000 with the vision to transform how organizations use data. Today, Exasol’s analytics database – the fastest in the world – is trusted by the world’s most ambitious organizations. With offices in several locations across the US and Europe, Exasol is committed to delivering flexible, scalable and powerful analytics solutions to customers wherever they are, in the cloud or on-premises. 

Exasol – accelerating insights from the world’s data.

Learn more at: www.exasol.com and follow us on social media: LinkedIn and Twitter.

About STATWARS®

STATWARS® is a data project, with multiple curriculum links to science, mathematics, computing, engineering as well as English and even geography. The engagement with data specialists and industry professionals in the competition allows pupils multiple opportunities to learn from employers about work, employment and the skills that are valued in the workplace. STATWARS® has been developed by Primary Engineer® and is fully funded across the UK by several funding partners. STATWARS® provides free teaching resources including lesson plans, activity sheets and video tutorials to unlock the value of data, as well as live interviews with data experts and skills sessions from experts. For more information visit www.statwarscompetition.com.

About Primary Engineer

STATWARS® is a fully-funded annual competition developed by Primary Engineer®. Primary Engineer is an educational not-for-profit organisation that provides a suite of programmes to encourage children from 3 to 19 years to consider STEM and data careers. Primary Engineer inspires children, pupils, parents and teachers through continued professional development, whole class project work, competitions, and engagement with industry professionals to ensure the learning has a context to the wider world. Primary Engineer promotes engineering and data careers and addresses the diversity and gender imbalance in engineering and data with early years, primary and secondary pupils. For further information visit www.primaryengineer.com.

PR Contacts:
Izzy Ward, EMEA PR Manager at Exasol
Email: isabella.ward@exasol.com

Alex Gribbin, Primary Engineer
Email: office@primaryengineer.com 

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In 1970, the first Earth Day occurred, giving a voice to the emerging environmental consciousness of the time. Now, in 2021, more than a billion individuals have played their part in raising awareness for our planet, alongside partners in 192 countries. To play our part, Primary Engineer® partnered with the Met Office on the 22nd of April for a panel interview on the use of data in their climate work. Chris Rochester, UK Director at Primary Engineer®, hosted the event alongside two incredible professors!

WHO ARE THEY?

Professor Richard Betts is a climate scientist at the Met Office and the University of Exeter. His main studies are how the ecosystems of the world can help reduce the build-up of CO2 in the atmosphere. Richard also works with researchers in other science fields in using computer models to assess the future risks that climate change poses to people and society. He is working with experts around the globe on a large international report for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which helps the United Nations encourage countries to take action to halt global warming.

Professor Lea Berrang Ford is an epidemiologist, a geographer, and an environmental scientist at the University of Leeds. She is an expert in all thing’s climate related, particularly impacts, vulnerabilities and adaptations. Lea is especially interested in how diseases are carried by insects, and those that spread between animals and humans. She works with people across the planet to help policy makers and organisations understand how we can adjust existing health and social systems to be more climate resilient. That means understanding how health and the way we live interact with climate and weather.

QUESTION TIME 

Although there were lots of incredible questions asked, we thought it would be a good opportunity to highlight a couple of unique ones to pique your interest. One school asked “What kind of qualifications do you need to be a scientist at the Met Office? Also, what are some new, developing careers coming to the Met Office?” and Richard was happy to explain: “So, if you want to be a scientist in the Met Office, most of us have degrees in stuff like maths and physics, but not everyone. Some of us have degrees in other aspects of science like biology or ecology or geography and so on. Because we do the computer modelling and calculations, most of us are mathematicians or physicists. (…) If you want to be a specialist, science is the thing [to do]. If you want to work elsewhere in the office, pretty much anything [can get you involved].”

Specifically for Lea, some pupils were asking: “Are batteries bad for the environment and how can they be revamped or improved to be better for the environment?” In response, Lea explained that “[That’s] a great question! If we think about this with the Reduce, Reuse, Recycle; it would be better if we simply used less. If you’re talking about the small AA ones, the damage is typically in chemical waste. There are also industrial battery approaches, and there are certainly efforts being made to come up with different technologies. There is no easy answer to that. The first thing is to reduce our energy use, then the energy that we DO use is from sustainable resources.”

GET INVOLVED 

We’d like to take a moment to thank the wonderful viewers that joined our panel interview with the Met Office. Your questions were thought-provoking, interesting and really probed into the nitty gritty of climate change and our planet. Luckily, if you weren’t able to make it to the live event, we have uploaded the session to our STATWARS YouTube channel so that you can enjoy it freely. 

To get involved in any of our upcoming interviews for STATWARS, make sure to watch out on our website for registration details.

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By showcasing how data skills are essential to tackling one of the most important issues of their time – climate change – the challenge is an opportunity to get young minds inspired by analysing, interrogating, and presenting data.  

The partnership with Primary Engineer® for STATWARS® extends the Royal Society’s objective to champion science in schools and will allow both organisations to carry out creative programmes that embed STEM and data into school curriculums, enriching opportunities for all pupils. 

Participating schools can apply for a Royal Society grant, worth up to £3,000, to undertake a STEM research project, drawing on industry and academic partnerships they have developed as part of the STATWARS® challenge.

This extends the work of the Royal Society’s Tomorrows Climate Scientists programme, funded through its Partnership Grants scheme, in supporting students from age 5 to 18 to investigate and mitigate the local effects of climate change and biodiversity loss that are affecting their own communities. 

Susan Scurlock, CEO and Founder of Primary Engineer, said:

“This is an exceptional partnership with the Royal Society which will see pupils investigate the big scientific question that matters to them – how to tackle climate change.  STATWARS® is free to all primary and secondary schools and provides opportunities for pupils to develop data science skills which are incredibly important to our understanding of the world and for future careers.  The partnership with The Royal Society will raise the profile and importance of data science and data skills by enabling teachers and pupils to work on an engaging, curriculum-mapped project.”

Professor Sir Jim Hough OBE FRS, physicist and Chair of the Royal Society Partnership Grants programme, said:

”We are delighted to be partnering with STATWARS to enable pupils to address issues around climate change and to develop data science skills using real world data. This will be a fantastic opportunity for them to make a significant contribution to help solve specific climate change problems while still at any early stage of their education.”

More information about the Partnership Grants scheme, with detailed guidance for schools, can be found at www.royalsociety.org/partnership.  For further information and to register for STATWARS®, visit www.statwarscompetition.com.  

About Primary Engineer

STATWARS® is a free-to-schools annual competition developed by Primary Engineer®. Primary Engineer is an educational not-for-profit organisation that provides a suite of programmes to encourage children from 3 to 19 years to consider STEM and engineering careers. Primary Engineer inspires children, pupils, parents and teachers through continued professional development, whole class project work, competitions, and engagement with engineers and industry professionals to ensure the learning has a context to the wider world. Primary Engineer promotes engineering and data careers and addresses the diversity and gender imbalance in engineering with early years, primary and secondary pupils.

About The Royal Society

The Royal Society is a self-governing Fellowship of many of the world’s most distinguished scientists drawn from all areas of science, engineering, and medicine. The Society’s fundamental purpose, as it has been since its foundation in 1660, is to recognise, promote, and support excellence in science and to encourage the development and use of science for the benefit of humanity. http://royalsociety.org. 

Follow the Royal Society on Twitter (@royalsociety) or on Facebook (facebook.com/theroyalsociety)

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Professor Lea Berrang Ford is an Epidemiologist (someone who studies diseases), a geographer and an environmental scientist at the University of Leeds. She is an expert in climate change impacts, vulnerability, and adaptation related to public and global health, and is particularly interested in how diseases carried by insects, and those that spread between animals and humans, are affected by our changing climate.

Professor Richard Betts is a Climate Scientist at the Met Office and the University of Exeter. He studies how the ecosystems of the world can help to slow the build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere caused by people burning coal, oil and gas, and develops better ways of predicting whether climate change will mean that ecosystems stop doing this, causing climate change to accelerate.

Make sure to book your tickets at www.leadersaward.com/meet-an-engineer and www.statwarscompetition.com/interview-a-professional so you and your pupils can get involved. Remember, you can pre-submit your questions to marketing@primaryengineer.com so we can get straight into the Q&A!

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Neringa Grigale, leading Data Scientist at Beyond Analysis, is crunching the numbers and asking the right questions with ‘STATWARS’. Her passion is being a detective of data and telling stories with the power of STEM.

Narlen Mahabeer, the new Reward Consultant at The Weir Group, has honed is
engineering skills and transferred them to project management and a corporate role! We guess you could call him a Jack of all Trades!

Alan Stewart, Group Head of Advanced Manufacturing, Innovation and Research, is taking a break from his responsibilities to give ‘If You Were an Engineer, What Would You Do?’ an interview!

Asim Wadoodi is joining Primary Engineer for an interview! Asim caught our attention
after he made a UAV with sensors from a Wii remote at university! Now, as a Project Engineer at The Weir Group, he is generously joining us to answer our questions!

Wael Aboulezz, Data Science Lead at Vodafone, is joining ‘STATWARS’ on the 28th April at 14:00, to delve into the depths and wonders of his 11 year career in data!

Recent graduate and now fully-fledged engineer, Simon Ponting is set to inspire ‘If You Were an Engineer, What Would You Do?’ pupils whilst we start revolutionising the way we think about STEM!

Looking ahead at the month of May, we have Performance Analyst at Network Rail, Julia Culley, on board to set your classroom on the right track for their data investigations. In it, your pupils can find about the day-to-day role of a data professional, as well as ask their own questions, bringing them to their final destination; a STEM-based career! Make sure to book your tickets at www.leadersaward.com/meet-an-engineer and www.statwarscompetition.com/interview-a-professional so you and your pupils can get involved. Remember, you can pre-submit your questions to marketing@primaryengineer.com so we can get straight into the Q&A!

If you’re struggling to catch our live interviews, we consistently upload these sessions to our ’STATWARS’ and ‘If You Were an Engineer, What Would You Do?’ YouTube channels! There are a range of disciplines on there to engage with young minds and inspire some incredible inventions; from Luxury Automotive Engineers to Experimental Test Pilots!

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The STATWARS^® competition consists of two free-to-schools educational projects, focusing on using data to deliver meaningful and engaging mathematics, data handling and data visualising skills to pupils in primary and secondary schools across the UK. Both the STATWARS^® Climate Change Challenge and STATWARS^® Film & TV enable young people to investigate and present data and use it to inform decision making as they work through a topic that is meaningful, relevant and contemporary.

Dr Susan Scurlock MBE, CEO and Founder of Primary Engineer^®, said: “Beyond Analysis, as award-winning data science, analytics and strategic data solutions and consulting business, align brilliantly with the STATWARS^® project. We are thrilled they have joined us in inspiring and educating young people about the power of data in decision making, the role it will play in their future careers, and the need for future professionals with data skills.”

Paul Alexander, CEO and Founder of Beyond Analysis said: “We have seen over the last decade how the exponential rise in big data along with a technological revolution has left a gap in the market for data skills. The volume of data science and engineering roles needed by industry has exploded, and as a business, we are conscious of the need for future generations to understand and develop the data skills that every business needs. It is not difficult to see why we are so passionate about supporting STATWARS and Primary Engineer in improving education and raising awareness of the exciting opportunities available to young people.”

About Beyond Analysis

Since 2007 Beyond Analysis has delivered advanced data solutions and strategic consultancy services to help clients drive efficiencies, build a business, and gain competitive advantage by ‘Putting data to Work’. Operating globally, they remain locally focused, using the latest artificial intelligence, machine learning and proprietary visualisation tools to model and forecast behaviour. By sharing intelligent, relevant insights they consistently deliver impressive financial returns and improve customer experience and employee engagement for clients.

About Primary Engineer

STATWARS^® is a fully-funded annual competition developed by Primary Engineer^®. Primary Engineer is an educational not-for-profit organisation that provides a suite of programmes to encourage children from 3 to 19 years to consider STEM and data careers. Primary Engineer inspires children, pupils, parents and teachers through continued professional development, whole class project work, competitions, and engagement with industry professionals to ensure the learning has a context to the wider world. Primary Engineer promotes engineering and data careers and addresses the diversity and gender imbalance in engineering with early years, primary and secondary pupils. For further information visit www.primaryengineer.com.

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The competition consists of a free-to-schools STATWARS^® Film & TV project, designed to inspire and educate young people about the power of data in decision making. As an educational project, it enables young people in primary and secondary schools across the UK to make rich cross-curricular connections between mathematics, the world of work and their own learning, as they work through a topic that is meaningful, relevant and contemporary.

Dr Susan Scurlock MBE, CEO and Founder of Primary Engineer^®, said: “We are thrilled WarnerMedia has joined us in taking STATWARS^® to the classroom. The STATWARS^® Film & TV project encourages young people to design a film or TV series based on data, while encouraging them to apply mathematics not just creatively, but logically, to collect, analyse and present data, in addition to drawing on their own personal experiences of what makes great entertainment.”

During the course of the project, young people will have multiple opportunities to engage with data professionals from WarnerMedia and ask their questions on the use of data in Film & TV.

Scott Joslin, Senior Vice President International Data Strategy, WarnerMedia said: “WarnerMedia is not only a first-in-class media company but a robust technology organisation that uses data to bring content to life in exciting new ways.  We are proud to support Primary Engineer’s STATWARS^®: Film & TV project and its goal to introduce a new generation of storytellers and young creative innovators to the important role data plays within entertainment and media.”

About STATWARS^®

STATWARS^® is a data project, with multiple curriculum links to science, mathematics, computing, engineering as well as English and even geography. The engagement with data specialists and industry professionals in the competition allows pupils multiple opportunities to learn from employers about work, employment and the skills that are valued in the workplace. STATWARS^® has been developed by Primary Engineer^® and is fully funded across the UK by several funding partners. STATWARS^® provides free teaching resources including lesson plans, activity sheets and video tutorials to unlock the value of data, as well as live interviews with data experts and skills sessions from experts. For more information visit www.statwarscompetition.com.

About WarnerMedia

WarnerMedia is a leading media and entertainment company that creates and distributes premium and popular content from a diverse array of talented storytellers and journalists to global audiences through its consumer brands including HBO, HBO Max, Warner Bros., TNT, TBS, truTV, CNN, DC Entertainment, New Line, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, Turner Classic Movies and others. The organization also includes Xandr’s suite of advanced advertising solutions designed to help to improve advertising for brands, publishers, and consumers.

About Primary Engineer

STATWARS^® is a fully-funded annual competition developed by Primary Engineer^®. Primary Engineer is an educational not-for-profit organisation that provides a suite of programmes to encourage children from 3 to 19 years to consider STEM and data careers. Primary Engineer inspires children, pupils, parents and teachers through continued professional development, whole class project work, competitions, and engagement with industry professionals to ensure the learning has a context to the wider world. Primary Engineer promotes engineering and data careers and addresses the diversity and gender imbalance in engineering and data with early years, primary and secondary pupils. For further information visit www.primaryengineer.com.

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The competition consists of two free-to-school projects, STATWARS^® Climate Change Challenge and STATWARS^® Film & TV, both designed to inspire and educate young people about the power of data in decision making, the role it will play in their future careers, and the need for future professionals with data skills. As an educational project, it focuses on using data to deliver meaningful and engaging mathematics, data handling and data visualising skills to pupils in primary and secondary schools across the UK.

Johan Wibergh, Vodafone Group’s Chief Technology Officer, explained: “Demand for digital skills outstrips the supply of available talent. We need to engage with students about how timely, anonymised data can address issues that matter to them, whether they’re using it to predict floods or creating safe corridors for endangered animals.

“Also, many young people may not have access to the skills needed to prepare them for the digital economy. In partnership with Primary Engineer, we can help empower young people by providing the digital skills they need to thrive. We aim to establish similar partnerships with organisations in other countries in which we operate.”

Both the STATWARS^® Climate Change Challenge and STATWARS^® Film & TV encourage and develop meta skills related to teamwork, communication, leadership, curiosity, empathy, critical thinking and resilience, as teams collaborate on indeterminate problems and develop data-driven solutions. Both projects provide free-to-school teaching resources including lesson plans, activity sheets and video tutorials, as well as live interviews and skills sessions with experts. Pupils then submit answers in the form of a poster, infographic or presentation, with judges selecting winners.

Dr Susan Scurlock MBE, CEO and Founder of Primary Engineer^®, said: “We are thrilled that Vodafone with their newly announced environmental pledges is joining us in our mission to empower pupils through data. Young people are asking not only for action on climate change but to be better informed so they can be part of the discussion. The STATWARS^® Climate Change Challenge is designed to enable pupils to use data to drive their decision-making process. This helps them identify the things they can do to tackle  climate change, and highlights these issues within the curriculum.”

About Primary Engineer

STATWARS^® is a data project, with multiple curriculum links to science, mathematics, computing, engineering as well as English and even geography. STATWARS^® has been developed by Primary Engineer^® and is fully funded across the UK by a number of funding partners. Primary Engineer is an educational not-for-profit organisation that provides a suite of programmes that encourage children from 3 to 19 years to consider STEM careers. Primary Engineer Programmes inspire children, pupils, parents and teachers through continued professional development, whole class project based learning and competitions. All the programmes are linked to industry professionals to ensure the learning has a context to the wider world.

Primary Engineer has won accolades including successive Red Rose Award’s for ‘Skills and Training Provider of the year’, Burnley Councils’ Chief Executive’s’ Award for bringing ‘Education and Industry together’ and featured in the Scottish Government’s Manufacturing Future for Scotland and the Engineering Skills Investment Plan. For further information visit www.primaryengineer.com.

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The STATWARS^® Competition consists of two projects – STATWARS^® Climate Change Challenge and STATWARS^® Film & TV – both designed to inspire and educate young people about the power of data in decision making, the role it will play in their future careers, and the need for future professionals with data skills. As an educational project, it focuses on using data to deliver meaningful and engaging mathematics, data handling and data visualising skills to pupils in primary and secondary schools across the UK.

Both the STATWARS^® Climate Change Challenge and STATWARS^® Film & TV encourage and develop meta skills related to teamwork, communication, leadership, curiosity, empathy, critical thinking and resilience, as teams collaborate on indeterminate problems and develop data-driven solutions. Pupils then submit answers in the form of a poster, infographic or presentation, with judges selecting winners.

By creating opportunities for pupils to develop an understanding of the value of data alongside a range of professionals from Network Rail, STATWARS^® will enable pupils to pick up tips on using, visualising and presenting data through live online interviews and skills sessions.

Oliver Bratton, Network Rail’s Director, Network Strategy & Operations, said: “Numbers and the railway go hand in hand, supporting both engineering and how we deliver the service every day. Understanding how the millions of moving parts of the industry work together means modelling, statistics, and numerical problem solving which provide a vast range of opportunities and careers for everyone who enjoys working with figures.”

Dr Susan Scurlock MBE, CEO and Founder of Primary Engineer^®, said: “Network Rail has been a visionary funder supporting a range of Primary Engineer^® programmes, including If You Were An Engineer What Would You Do? and the Primary Engineer Rail project, to provide an inclusive approach enabling all children and young people to be inspired by engineering and data. We are delighted to have them join us as a partner for the STATWARS^® competition, particularly with its ability to bring valuable insights to pupils in our STATWARS^®  Climate Change Challenge.”

The STATWARS^® Climate Change Challenge empowers and educates young people to tackle climate change, by providing a project that delivers meaningful and engaging mathematics, numeracy, science, and data handling skills to pupils. They are required to understand, use and justify their use of quantitative and qualitative data, by seeking out and explaining patterns and relationships.

Lisa Constable, Network Rail’s Weather Resilience and Climate Change Adaptation Strategy Manager, said: “Climate change is causing more frequent and more severe extreme weather events, which in turn can have an impact on the safe and reliable operation of the railway. Through our involvement in the STATWARS Climate Change Challenge, we can use technology to improve the way we analyse, understand and manage risks to the railway. This project sits alongside our existing work, as set out in our Environmental Sustainability Strategy, to make the railway more resilient to the impact of climate change.”

About STATWARS^®

STATWARS^® is a data project, with multiple curriculum links to science, mathematics, computing, engineering as well as English and even geography, open to primary and secondary pupils. Both the STATWARS® Climate Change Challenge and STATWARS® Film & TV enable young people to investigate and present data and to use it to inform decision making.  The engagement with data specialists and industry professionals in the competition allows pupils multiple opportunities to learn from employers about work, employment and the skills that are valued in the workplace. STATWARS^® provides free teaching resources including lesson plans, activity sheets and video tutorials to unlock the value of data, as well as live interviews with data experts and skills sessions from experts. STATWARS^® has been developed by Primary Engineer^® and is fully funded across the UK by a number of funding partners. For more information visit www.statwarscompetition.com.

About Network Rail

Network Rail own, operate and develop Britain’s railway infrastructure; that’s 20,000 miles of track, 30,000 bridges, tunnels and viaducts and the thousands of signals, level crossings and stations. The run 20 of Britain’s largest stations while all the others, over 2,500, are run by the country’s train operating companies.

Usually, there are almost five million journeys made in Britain and over 600 freight trains run on the network. People depend on Britain’s railway for their daily commute, to visit friends and loved ones and to get them home safe every day. Network Rail’s role is to deliver a safe and reliable railway, so they carefully manage and deliver thousands of projects every year that form part of the multi-billion pound Railway Upgrade Plan, to grow and expand the nation’s railway network to respond to the tremendous growth and demand the railway has experienced – a doubling of passenger journeys over the past 20 years.

Visit our online newsroom: www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk

About Primary Engineer

Primary Engineer is an educational not-for-profit organisation that provides a suite of programmes that encourage children from 3 to 19 years to consider STEM careers. Primary Engineer Programmes inspire children, pupils, parents and teachers through continued professional development, whole class project work, competitions and exhibitions.  All the programmes are linked to industry professionals to ensure the learning has a context to the wider world. They develop essential skills, promote engineering careers and address the diversity and gender imbalance in engineering with primary and secondary pupils. Primary Engineer programmes has won accolades including successive Red Rose Award’s for ‘Skills and Training Provider of the year’, Burnley Councils’ Chief Executive’s’ Award for bringing ‘Education and Industry together’ and featured in the Scottish Government’s Manufacturing Future for Scotland and the Engineering Skills Investment Plan. For further information visit www.primaryengineer.com.

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Facebook UK have become a national partner for the STATWARS: Climate Change Challenge to support in empowering and educating young people to actively tackle climate change. STATWARS  is an educational programme that hinges on using data to deliver meaningful and engaging mathematics, numeracy, science, and data handling/visualising skills to pupils in primary and secondary schools across the UK.

Last week Facebook pledged to reach “net zero” carbon emissions for its global operations and be 100 percent supported by renewable energy by the end of 2020. Facebook also set an ambitious goal to reach net zero emissions for its value chain in 2030 by reducing carbon emissions through efficient designs, supplier engagement and carbon removal technology.

Thirdly, Facebook revealed its new Climate Science Information Centre, which aims to provide reliable, science-based information to its users. It will feature facts, figures and data from partners from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), including the Met Office in the UK or the UN Environment Programme and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Facebook’s commitment to addressing climate change and educating its users about this global crisis aligns with Primary Engineer’s vision for STATWARS. At Primary Engineer, we believe young people need to be aware of the power of data in decision making, the role it will play in their future careers and fill the need of professionals being able to ‘speak data’. We have therefore designed and launched the STATWARS: Climate Change Challenge to develop data skills in both primary and secondary aged children at home or in school. Our aim is to embed data into the heart of the educational journey, by linking creativity and enjoyment in developing a deep, sustainable understanding of the value and the use of data in all our lives . while educating young people on tackling climate change.

This new partnership will enable pupils to engage with and be inspired by Facebook’s data science, data engineering and machine learning professionals and pick up tips for their competition entry, through live online interviews, skills sessions and other engagement opportunities, bridging the gap between education and industry.

Eoghan Griffin, EMEA sustainability manager for Facebook, said: “Facebook understands the urgency of climate change and is determined to be part of the solution. As a platform that connects more than three billion people, we are connecting people to reliable and accurate climate science information through our Climate Science Information Hub. Our goals are to educate more people on this topic and give them information and resources to address this crisis. That’s why we are so excited to partner with Primary Engineer and connect our London-based data scientists and machine learning experts with school children in the UK who want to use mathematics and computer science to tackle climate change.”Dr Susan Scurlock MBE, CEO and Founder of Primary Engineer explains ‘STATWARS is a programme designed to help young people make decisions based on data and using the data to make changes in their daily lives to have a positive impact on Climate Change. We all need to do something; this programme helps to identify just what that should be. Susan continues, “We are delighted to partner with Facebook, recognising their commitment to climate change and look forward to engaging more young people with data to drive informed decisions.

Chris Rochester, UK Director of Primary Engineer adds, “The opportunity for schools and the relationship with Facebook is hugely exciting.  It offers pupils and teachers across the UK access to data professionals from Facebook to not only work on a data project focused on climate change, which we know pupils are passionate about, but which allows them to realise the power of data in society and the roles and opportunities that are available to them as potential future careers.  The partnership with Facebook means young people can have a meaningful context to their learning through linking it to one of the world’s biggest brands.”

About STATWARS^®

The STATWARS: Climate Change Challenge encourages pupils to use data creatively and logically to support what we call, their personal climate change manifesto. The nature of the project encourages and develops meta skills related to teamwork, communication, leadership, curiosity, empathy, critical thinking and resilience, as teams collaborate on indeterminate problems and develop data driven hypothesis. The STATWARS: Climate Change Challenge also encourages the use of technology, to search and collect data, as well as data mining and analysis software, which allow the conceptualisation, manipulation and presentation of data. Pupils identify 3 changes they can personally commit to in their daily lives to lower their own carbon footprint. Pupils are then required to produce an infographic of their three pledges with an explanation of the data used to influence the decisions with visual charts and graphs and a poster designed to encourage others to make one or all three of the pledges. STATWARS is a free annual competition developed by Primary Engineer^®. STATWARS provides free teaching resources including lesson plans, activity sheets and video tutorials to unlock the value of data, as well as live interviews with data experts and skills sessions from experts. For more information visit www.statwarscompetition.com.

About Primary Engineer

Primary Engineer is an educational not-for-profit organisation that provides a suite of programmes that encourage children from 3 to 19 years to consider STEM career. Primary Engineer Programmes inspire children, pupils, parents and teachers through continued professional development, whole class project work, competitions and exhibitions.  All the programmes are linked to industry professionals to ensure the learning has a context to the wider world. They develop essential skills, promote engineering careers and address the diversity and gender imbalance in engineering with primary and secondary pupils. Primary Engineer programmes has won accolades including successive Red Rose Award’s for ‘Skills and Training Provider of the year’, Burnley Councils’ Chief Executive’s’ Award for bringing ‘Education and Industry together’ and featured in the Scottish Government’s Manufacturing Future for Scotland and the Engineering Skills Investment Plan. For further information visit www.primaryengineer.com or follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter and Youtube.

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