How far can an electric car travel on a single charge?
Primary school children are discovering the answer for themselves by building, charging and racing simple electric vehicles as part of a series of workshops sponsored by West Mercia Energy, in partnership with npower Business Solutions (nBS).
The Power to Drive workshops are available to Year 6 and 7 pupils in schools across England who purchase their
energy through West Mercia Energy.
They form part of the social value provision nBS includes in all its public-sector supply contracts. “We worked with West Mercia Energy to establish how best to support their members, and as many are schools, they decided one way would be to offer STEM*-based activities to engage and educate young people about energy,” explains Katherine Deller, Social Value Lead at nBS.
The workshops are delivered by ElevationX, a specialist STEM outreach organisation which has partnered with nBS for many years.
"In these Power to Drive workshops, young people learn about electricity and how it’s generated and used, explains Managing Director of ElevationX and former teacher Mike Ridler. We also build miniature electric cars, incorporating some of the principles of gears and voltage input. The kids then have fun competing in teams to see how far their cars can travel.
“I enjoyed how we learnt about electricity and how we used power to make the cars work – and I mostly enjoyed building
the cars.” - Lauren (age 10), Grove Primary School, Melton Mowbray.
inspiring educational resource to our education-based customers,” says Gavin Owen, Head of Business Development for
West Mercia Energy.
“We’ve had lots of interest in this initiative and so far this year, 25 schools have already benefitted from a Power to Drive
workshop.
The feedback from both teachers and children has been extremely positive and we are thrilled to be able to provide
something so worthwhile to young people – and possibly even inspire them to take up a STEM-based career.”
*Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics