Our STEM grant funds Sensational Science project
STEM Grants application deadline is now extended until Friday 17th December 2021. For more information or to apply please click here.
Every year, the Millennium Point Charitable Trust Small Grants programme gives out grants of up to £20,000 to support science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) education projects in the West Midlands. We have funded many different projects across all areas of STEM, supporting learning development for young students.
Here is another great example of the type of work we do, this project was funded in 2019 and shows the power of what the grants funding can achieve for STEM organisations.
Who are Birmingham Botanical Gardens?
The Birmingham Botanical Gardens are a 15-acre botanical garden situated in Edgbaston, and one of the most popular attractions for families in the region. There is plenty on offer for visitors with outdoor events including film screenings and performances, along with access to four stunning glasshouses, a playground, tea room and garden gift shop.
Why did they apply for a Millennium Point Grant?
The Birmingham Botanical Gardens reached out to the Millennium Point Charitable Trust to help support it’s Sensational Science project. They wanted to address a ongoing issue where primary schools lack the resources and skills to provide laboratory style and specialist science learning experiences for young people. Sensational Science is a new, original interactive education workshop designed to enable school children to investigate plant DNA and undertake scientific experiments into the science behind plants in a laboratory-style session at Birmingham Botanical Gardens.
The aim of the project is to inspire and generate more interest around Science, while developing young peoples skillsets and implementing more science and STEM subjects at school.
Sensational Science impacts 1,000 pupils
The results of the project have been fantastic with KS1 and KS2 primary school pupils benefitting from practical experience of scientific investigation. The project is being led by an award-winning education team, with 35 sessions taking place, covering 1000 pupils, many from deprived and marginalised backgrounds.
The project demonstrates the practical application of STEM within a green space which elevates their knowledge of STEM in a fun and imaginative way.
Botanical Gardens “thrilled” with the outcome of the project
Our STEM Grants team caught up with The Botanical Gardens and they couldn’t of been any happier with the outcome of the project. They commented:
“We are absolutely thrilled to have been awarded a small grant from Millennium Point Trust. As a direct result of this grant, we can deliver an exciting programme of bespoke workshops enabling school children to investigate plant DNA and undertake scientific experiments into the science behind plants in a laboratory-style workshop at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens.
The funding will enable us to deliver a minimum of 35 workshops during the year 2019/20, and provide opportunities for up to 1,000 primary school children from Birmingham and West Midlands schools to ‘work scientifically’.
We are especially delighted that this grant will help support the prohibitive costs of travel for up to 20 of our most deprived local schools, a cost we know to be a barrier to some of our closest inner-city schools. With your support, we are able to provide the additional benefit to schools of being able to access the Gardens in general -where they can stay for as long as they choose!
We would like to put on record our thanks to Millennium Point Trust for their support for our work and their hugely important commitment to developing the STEM agenda in this region.”
About educational grant funding from Millennium Point
Educators, Charities and Not-for-Profits within the West Midlands Combined Authority can apply for up to £20,000 from Millennium Point to fund their STEM activity.
The STEM Grants application deadline is now extended until Friday 17th December 2021. For more information or to apply please click here.
Find more interesting content from Millennium Point over at our news section, or follow us for daily updates on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn with @MillenniumPoint. Millennium Point is a landmark public building and multi-award-winning events venue in the Eastside of Birmingham City centre. Profits from our commercial activity are invested by the Millennium Point Charitable Trust into projects, events and initiatives which support the growth of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) and education in the West Midlands.
