STEM Seminars at the Goodwood Education Trust

18th July 2024

The Goodwood Education Trust hosts successful STEM Seminars at the Goodwood Festival of Speed.

The Goodwood Education Trust, the independent environmental education charity operating on the Goodwood Estate, has for many years hosted STEM Seminars for secondary school students, in conjunction with Dick Powell of design agency Seymour Powell. 

  • Goodwood Education Trust

  • Estate

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This year was no exception. 16 schools, including one Special School and one Alternative Provision setting, brought almost 300 secondary school students with an interest in creative or product design, to enjoy a half day access to the Festival of Speed site and a half day of seminars.

Hand-selected by Dick Powell for their interest and relevance to young people, the speakers talked about their work, about their experience and about their design and life journey. The impact could be felt by the sheer number of questions raised by the students to the speakers.

One teacher explained how he had attended the STEM Seminars 10 years ago, and inspired to make the move into teaching, was now bringing his own students to be similarly enthused.

Students were interested that the talks highlighted options for the future, that they don’t need to follow a traditional path. Students currently studying at A level said that it definitely made them think about work experience and placements being a good pathway to take.

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Image credit: Matt Dunkinson

Speakers included:

Alex Hulme of Approach Studio, the industrial design consultancy, who encouraged the students to look around and find everyday items that are not perfect and need to be fixed or problems that need to be solved.

James Wood of Studio Wood, designs reusable products with sustainability and the environment in mind. He spoke about promoting women within the design industry and encouraging those who are disadvantaged and facing challenges to embrace design.

Ella O’Toole of Notpla explained how her company Notpla uses seaweed to replace single use plastic giving examples around take away food packaging, ice cream spoons and salad dressing pipettes. They use an inhouse wormery to check sustainability - if the worms can't digest it, it won't be made.

Anne Bartlett, Education Officer at the Goodwood Education Trust said, ‘The seminars this year have been across two days instead of one, and Dick Powell supported the Education Trust in making the two days a great success. The majority of the students attending were from disadvantaged backgrounds, and the seminars that Dick curated were inspirational and aspirational with many of the speakers sharing their own difficult journeys to success’.

Schools who would like to secure a place for the 2025 Seminars (10 and 11 July) can contact Anne at get@goodwood.com

  • Goodwood Education Trust

  • Estate