Clerkhill kids become offshore wind engineers for the day

Primary five pupils from Clerkhill Primary School in Peterhead got the chance to be offshore wind engineers for the day recently thanks to a special STEM education organised by the MarramWind floating offshore windfarm project team.

Around 70 children took to Peterhead Lido beach to learn all about offshore renewable energy and even built their own floating turbines to put their learning to the test.

The event – organised by the MarramWind project team and Fugro, the company carrying out specialist surveys for the proposed windfarm – proved to be a huge hit.

It included interactive discussions and games about wind turbine technology, as well as the chance to build and decommission a small OffshoreWind4Kids kit.

The programme gave the children – aged 9 and 10 years – the chance to find out what’s involved in bringing these critical energy infrastructure projects to life as well as a taste of a future green career.

Feedback from the children was very positive:

• “I loved building the wind turbines and also the suction buckets, which were so fun! It’s so cool learning about all the different types of turbines and their functions.” – Liam (10)
• “I liked the wind turbine models and I found a little animal on the beach! Making rockpools on the beach and learning about wind energy has been really fun.” – Sarah (9)
• “Weather was wet, but I really liked seeing the turbines and how they float. I really liked the pump structures. Been a great day!” – Caleb (9)
• "It was really good to learn about offshore wind and how it can give us energy for our houses. Building the models was great fun and helped us see how it works in real life.” –  Robbie (10)

Colin McFarlane, Senior Stakeholder Manager, from MarramWind, said: “What a fantastic day and huge thanks to Clerkhill School and Fugro for working with us to make it such a brilliant success. I’ve no doubt we have some budding offshore wind engineers in the group – the children were fascinated about how wind turbines work and how the clean, green energy they produce gets from these impressive structures out in the water into their homes and powering their lives.

“These young people are the green workforce of the future and getting the chance to talk to them about what projects like ours could mean for them, their families and the north-east as a whole was a real privilege – and a huge amount of fun!”

Jonathan Ainley, Global Key Account Manager at Fugro commented: “It’s important to us to support the communities we work in, so we’re grateful to partner with MarramWind to bring this initiative to children in Peterhead. Their great questions and enthusiasm for the energy transition was wonderful to see and hopefully these students will follow their passion for STEM and consider a career in renewables.”

Jenna Mitchell, Primary 5 Teacher at Clerkhill School, added: “It was great to get the kids out on the beach, building their own turbines, and learning from the team at MarramWind and Fugro about how energy from wind is generated. The children had a blast learning all about renewable energy and getting to put their new knowledge to the test – all in all a success!”

A joint ScottishPower and Shell project, MarramWind could be one of the first commercial-scale floating offshore windfarms in the world. Located 75km off the north-east coast of Aberdeenshire and with a proposed capacity of 3GW, it could produce enough homegrown green electricity to power the equivalent of more than 3.5 million homes.