Hey Guys! Whats up?
Gosh! I can’t believe how fast this year has flown by and all the crazy things we have done since I started doing this full time in February. It doesn’t seem real.
Last month we trialled our pilot SURVEY Fest program with Alison Watson from Class of Your Own. Let me tell you, that was a craaazy time! And then most recently we have released our European Offshore poster and soon will release the US version. Now I am starting to put together our plans for 2020 – poster releases, lesson plans, classroom activities, comic strips and more.
But first, back to SURVEY Fest…
SURVEY Fest! The Pilot
Soo as I mentioned in my last update, we joined forces with Class of Your Own. You know Alison Watson who is bringing surveying curriculum into schools across the globe? Thats right! She’s amazing and we are so lucky to be partnered with her and her company. So with our partnership we decided create a program that could link industry with education. A one day event that could be held at schools where industry professionals could run surveying activities and inspire the next generation. Last month we trialled it. We held the first one in a High School in Manchester, England for 200, 11 year olds. We had activities like ‘Roman Surveying’ using body parts to measure, ‘Floor Planning’ of classrooms using measuring tapes and Disto lasers, ‘Setting Out’ and ‘Guess the Height’ using a total station. My my it was one BUSY day and as you can imagine we were quite exhausted by the end of it.
Soo as I mentioned in my last update, we joined forces with Class of Your Own. You know Alison Watson who is bringing surveying curriculum into schools across the globe? Thats right! She’s amazing and we are so lucky to be partnered with her and her company. So with our partnership we decided create a program that could link industry with education. A one day event that could be held at schools where industry professionals could run surveying activities and inspire the next generation. Last month we trialled it. We held the first one in a High School in Manchester, England for 200, 11 year olds. We had activities like ‘Roman Surveying’ using body parts to measure, ‘Floor Planning’ of classrooms using measuring tapes and Disto lasers, ‘Setting Out’ and ‘Guess the Height’ using a total station. My my it was one BUSY day and as you can imagine we were quite exhausted by the end of it.
Pictured above: James Whitworth, Leica – Stuart Edwards, Newcastle University – Katie Holt, ICES – Elly Ball, GKiS – Nathan Savory, Leica – and two students of St Ambrose RC Barlow High School
Pictured above: James Whitworth, Leica – Stuart Edwards, Newcastle University – Katie Holt, ICES – Elly Ball, GKiS – Nathan Savory, Leica – and two students of St Ambrose RC Barlow High School
So how did it go?
17 amazing surveying professionals come together on the day to run 6 very different activities for the students at St Ambrose Barlow RC High School. We had a lot of energy, some amazing successes with kids really showing great enthusiasm and enjoying something a bit different. As with any trial we also had some things that didn’t quite work like the size of the groups of kids and the length of time given for some of the activities. All things we can work on for the release of the program for sure. I can tell you that we learnt a LOT and all in all we have now created a great foundation to work from. Building a new program for schools is always going to be challenging but we are so incredibly lucky to have such a great founding team helping us.
I would like to give another BIG shout out to these great organisations and companies who helped us get SURVEY Fest off the ground; Topcon, Jacobs, Leica Geosystems, Chartered Institution of Civil Engineering Surveyors, local Manchester surveying firm Hollis Global, training providers Sygma Solutions as well as both Newcastle and Glasgow Universities. Other amazing supporters who couldn’t make it on the day but have helped us a great deal, the TSA and GEO Business Show.
Pictured above: Gareth Hughes, Topcon – Katie Holt, ICES, Craig Macdonell, University of Glasgow – Alison Watson, Class of Your Own and a Year 7 class from St Ambrose Barlow RC High School.
You can read more about our day from our Founding Sponsor Topcon.
So, what’s next for SURVEY Fest?
We plan to work and develop the activities with ‘Class of Your Own’ and our Founding Members to create a package that can be used for all schools (in conjunction with industry), around the world.
The idea is simple. We just need schools to come forward and host a SURVEY Fest day, and a group of SURVEY Fest Ambassadors (industry Volunteers) to run the activities on that day. We create the program.
As we are still in the early development stages of this program we would love any feedback and suggestions about how we run SURVEY Fest. If you are a school who are interested or you are industry wanting to be a SURVEY Fest Ambassador/volunteer in your local area then please let me know: elly@getkidsintosurvey.com.
Back to ‘Get Kids into Survey’ and our Offshore Poster!!
We did it! Our European Offshore poster landed in Norway in time for the annual Norwegian Offshore Forum for Survey and Positioning (NOSP) dinner last week! We had some incredible support for this poster. I can’t thank Celina Thom and NOSP enough – they made an outstanding contribution of over £5,000 on behalf of their sponsor companies who have each donated to NOSP for the betterment of the survey industry in Norway. WOW – This is HUGE for the industry and we are so grateful for the generosity and help to produce this poster.
Elizabeth Swann, Project Surveyor of Subsea 7 (pictured here) gave us some amazing feedback and input into this poster. We also had incredible support from Helen Atkinson from the The Hydrographic Society in the UK. We cannot make this material and inspire the next generation without the help of the community. You are all crucial in the making of the next generation of surveyors and industry professionals. Just imagine the talent we are bringing to the industry by reaching out to kids at a younger age. We might not see it for years, but believe me – we are doing it! Together! You can now order this poster on our website.
Our US version of this poster is almost ready. In fact, there is still some time to help us with sponsorship if you want to get involved. Please email me if you are interested.
2020 is upon us and we have some amazing things coming. January will kick us off with our Utilities Poster. We have one coming out for each of our regions, Australia, Europe/UK and the USA. If you want to sponsor then get in touch with me asap!
Posters we have in the works for next year include; Environmental/Disaster Poster, Transport, a Comic book themed poster which will tie in with our comic book of course and then finally ending the year with an Arctic poster focused on Climate Change. We will announce these posters officially on our socials in the coming weeks. We are always looking for new ideas for posters, activity sheets and other classroom material. Please don’t hesitate to contact me to collaborate and bring your ideas to life.
November 2019 brought us to the end of our first chapter of the GeoSquad and you’ll be glad to know Episode 1 of Chapter 2 will be out in January! If you have missed the first chapter you can catch up on our website. Here, you can also find out which magazines print for us. Our comic book is written by the very talented Mathew Sullivan FRSA; teacher, speaker, educational consultant and author of children’s fiction and educational literature. With that being said Mat is not only working on the comic book for us but he is working to produce lesson plans and classroom activities that tie in with both the comic and our posters. Stay tuned for more updates on this soon. We are super excited.
Website
Since my sister Elaine came up with the first poster idea 2 years ago we have been living on the Elaine Ball Ltd website which has been great, but I can tell you one thing for sure, we are no longer a campaign. We are planning some big things and it’s time for ‘Get Kids into Survey’ to officially go it alone. Next month will see us soar into a whole new world. Watch out! We cant wait to show you our new website soon to be revealed.
Thats it for now.
Until next time,
Elly
