School Outreach Made Simple

Inside the Get Kids into Survey Brand Ambassador Hub

Going into a school to talk about surveying sounds like a great idea.

But then come the questions…

What do I talk about? How do I explain surveying to a 10-year-old? Do I need to create a lesson? What activities could we do? And where do I even start?

The answer is: you don’t have to start from scratch.

The Get Kids into Survey Brand Ambassador Hub, supported by Topcon, brings together resources, activities, presentations and advice designed to help geospatial professionals take surveying into classrooms.

Whether you have 20 minutes, an hour or a whole morning with a class, you can use the Hub to pick and choose what works for your visit.

What is the Brand Ambassador Hub?

The Hub is an online space on SKOOL for Get Kids into Survey Brand Ambassadors.

It’s where we bring together the resources that can help you plan and deliver outreach, from thinking about your first school visit to choosing a practical activity or downloading something for children to take home.

With the support of Topcon, we’ve been able to continue developing the Hub and give Brand Ambassadors more tools to take into their communities and classrooms.

The idea behind it is simple:

You already have surveying knowledge and real-world experience. We can help you turn it into something that works for children aged 8–12.

You don’t need to become a teacher. You don’t need to design an entire lesson plan. And you certainly don’t need to create everything yourself.

Start with a little preparation

If you’ve never delivered school outreach before, the Preparing for Outreach section is a good place to begin.

There’s a Preparing for Outreach Checklist, designed to help you think through what you might need before heading into a school.

We’ve also brought together Top Tips from Brand Ambassadors, using experiences from people who have already delivered outreach to share what worked, what engaged the children and what they would recommend to others.

It means your first school visit doesn’t have to feel like stepping completely into the unknown.

Need something to structure your session?

One of the easiest ways to start is with a presentation.

The Hub includes our Introduction to Survey presentation, an interactive introduction to what surveyors are, what they do and why their work matters, with questions and answers along the way to encourage children to get involved.

There’s also a Who are GKiS? presentation to introduce Get Kids into Survey and the wider mission behind what we do (more suitable for surveyors presenting in an adult conference setting).

But these don’t have to be the whole session.

Use them as a starting point and then add the thing children often find most interesting: your own experiences.

Show them a photograph from a recent project. Tell them about an unusual place you’ve worked. Bring along your PPE. Explain what the equipment in the back of your car actually does!

It doesn’t need to be complicated to be memorable.

Let them have a go

We know children learn differently, and sitting through an hour-long presentation isn’t going to be everyone’s idea of fun!

That’s why we’ve been building practical Outreach Sessions within the Hub, helping Brand Ambassadors turn some of the principles of surveying into activities children can get involved with themselves.

Current activities cover:

🌄 Topography
🗺️ Mapping
📏 Loop Levelling
🏛️ Surveying Our History

These resources form part of the wider Hub that Topcon’s support helps us provide to our Brand Ambassador community, giving industry professionals something practical to work with when they step into a classroom.

And, where appropriate, you can complement the activities with your own surveying equipment.

A total station, GNSS receiver or laser scanner might be something you use every week. To an 8-year-old who has never seen one before, it’s completely new.

Show them what it does. Let them see the data. Explain where you use it and why.

Sometimes the simplest demonstrations generate the most questions.

Something to print? We’ve got that too.

Not every visit needs lots of equipment or a big practical exercise.

Sometimes you just need something you can print, pack and take with you.

The Hub includes printable activities such as:

🧩 Surveying Applications Crossword
🏠 Homework Projects
🎨 Colouring Sheets
🌎 Measure the World

They can be used during your session, given to children who finish an activity early or left with the teacher so the class can continue exploring surveying after you’ve gone.

Answering the inevitable career question

Once children begin discovering just how many different things surveyors do, another question often follows:

“How do you become a surveyor?”

The Hub includes a collection of Careers Leaflets that can be printed and shared with children, teachers and families.

There are currently careers resources covering Africa, the UK, several US states and offshore careers, helping Ambassadors provide information that’s relevant to different locations and areas of the profession.

They’re particularly useful as something to leave behind, so the conversation about surveying doesn’t necessarily end when you walk out of the classroom.

Then add the bit we can’t create for you

The Hub can give you plenty of materials.

What it can’t provide is your experience.

That’s what can make outreach particularly interesting.

Tell the class about the coolest place surveying has taken you.

Bring your PPE.

Show photographs from a project.

Talk about the equipment you use.

Explain where satellites, drones, lasers and maps come into your work.

Tell them how surveyors can be involved with roads, bridges, buildings, coastlines, mines, archaeological sites and projects beneath the ocean.

And give them plenty of opportunities to ask questions.

You don’t need an extraordinary story prepared. What feels like an ordinary part of your working day could be completely new to the children sitting in front of you.

Learn from other Brand Ambassadors too

The Hub isn’t only somewhere to download resources.

There’s also a community space where Brand Ambassadors can share their outreach experiences with Get Kids into Survey and each other.

Seeing what somebody else took into a classroom, which activities worked well or how they structured their visit can provide useful inspiration for your own outreach.

And after you’ve delivered a session, your experience could help the next person planning theirs.

It’s about creating a growing network of people who can share ideas and make school outreach feel increasingly achievable.

What could a school visit actually look like?

There isn’t one correct way to do it.

You might use the Introduction to Survey presentation, tell the children about your own career and finish with a practical mapping activity.

You might take a piece of equipment into school, demonstrate how it works and leave the class with a homework project.

Or perhaps you only have 20 minutes, so you talk about an interesting project, answer questions and leave behind some career information booklets.

That’s the point of the Hub.

It’s there to give you options, rather than prescribe exactly how outreach has to be done.

And thanks to the ongoing support of Topcon, we can continue giving Brand Ambassadors resources that help remove some of those initial barriers between “I’d love to do some school outreach” and “I’ve actually booked a school visit!”

How do you access the Brand Ambassador Hub?

The Hub is available to members of the Get Kids into Survey Brand Ambassador programme.

To get involved, head to the Brand Ambassador section of the Get Kids into Survey website and fill in the online form. It includes some personal details, questions for your Brand Ambassador profile and pictures.

Once you’ve completed the process, you’ll be able to access the Hub on SKOOL and explore the resources available for your own outreach.

From there, you can start small.

Browse the activities. Download a presentation. Read the advice from other Ambassadors. Think about which parts of your own career children might find interesting.

Then, when you’re ready, find a local school and give it a go.

We’ve created the resources to make outreach easier. You bring the surveying experience that makes it real. 🌍

A thank you to Topcon

Our Brand Ambassador Hub is about giving people across the geospatial profession the confidence and resources to introduce surveying to the next generation.

A huge thank you to Topcon for supporting the Brand Ambassador Hub and helping us make these outreach resources available to our community.

When industry gets behind education and outreach, we can help more children discover the people, technology and opportunities behind the world of geospatial surveying.