Matt Swan and myself (Alastair MacLeod) were invited for the second year in a row to showcase a career in geoscience to students of Bedford Academy at their STEM careers event.
We know this is important, because it is reported by The Geological Society that the number of students studying geology at UK universities has declined year-on-year since 2014 (student numbers have fallen by 43%). A similar trend is reported across all geoscience subjects. University Geosciences UK wrote in December 2023:
In conjunction with the falling student numbers is the realisation that geoscience, in a university setting, is dominated by white middle-class males with students from diverse backgrounds poorly represented. While students are exposed to some of the core concepts of geoscience during primary and secondary education, these are often covered in the curriculum of other subjects, such as geography and chemistry, meaning that geoscience lacks a clear identity. The number of students studying A-level geology has also dropped dramatically.
Clearly, a significant effort is required to enhance awareness of the subject that we find so fascinating. We hope that our enthusiasm can help generate interest and convert that interest into higher enrolment in geoscience subjects at A-Level and in further education.
We made our table as interactive as possible because engagement is everything. Most had never heard the term "geoscience", so to put that into context, we linked the rare-earth minerals required to build the phones in their pockets and the need to source more of them... that's geoscience! Getting regularly drenched in the bad summer weather whilst forest fires rage in Europe and the need to reduce hydrocarbon related energy generation and switch to renewable sources... that's geoscience!
With them all hooked, we moved them on to looking at considerations for building an offshore wind farm by getting them all to grab a home-made wind turbine and attempt to sink it into a variety of substrates. We had loose sands, hidden boulders, debris at seabed and ancient peat bogs. They observed how each was laughably bad at providing suitable long-term stablility for their turbines. Thus, we were able to link this challenge with the need to investigate the subsurface before we go out with a multi-million dollar installation operation.
Now we really had their attention and were getting close to what RockWave actually does!
The last part of their maiden voyage into the world of geoscience was to actually look at UHR seismic data that RockWave had processed and decide where might be the most suitable location for their turbine. The transect was littered with hazards, click the wrong area and they might go:
OK, so we might have dramatised some of the outcomes of their decisions, but it certainly made them want to keep trying to find the "right" location and sparked questions from them about our own careers.
All in all it was a great day and we hope to have shed light on the potential career pathways that could lie beyond their daily study of maths, physics or geography.
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