TWO students from Bohunt School in Liphook took part in the BP Ultimate STEM Challenge competition final at the Science Museum, in London.

Rosanna Clifton, 13, and 12-year-old Rosie Morgan-Clue developed their ideas for the Streamlined Ships Challenge, where they had to come up with an energy efficient design for a large tanker ship.

School science teacher Stratianna Davi said: “I’m so delighted we reached the finals, the standard of projects is so high that just participating in the final event has provided a great opportunity for the students.”

For the second consecutive year, BP, STEMNET and the Science Museum launched the nationwide schools competition, which challenges 11-14 year-old students to test their science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) skills by tackling real-world energy problems.

Ian Duffy, community development manager for BP in the UK said: “BP has been committed to STEM education for over 45 years and the BP Ultimate STEM Challenge is one of our key programmes.

“The research BP conducted with King’s College London and the Science Museum shows us we need to help to make STEM-related subjects more engaging by opening young people’s eyes to their relevance to themselves and their own lives.

“By running the BP Ultimate STEM Challenge, we hope to present young people with opportunities to engage with STEM in new and exciting ways, taking it beyond the classroom.”

Kirsten Bodley, chief executive at STEMNET added: “The creativity and enthusiasm that schools bring to the BP Ultimate STEM Challenge is absolutely inspiring. It’s also wonderful to see new STEM clubs starting up in order to take part.

“We hope the new clubs feel encouraged to continue to grow and that more young people become excited by STEM subjects and their opportunities post-16.”

Tom O’Leary, director of learning at the Science Museum said: “I’m impressed by the high calibre of the projects entered in this year’s BP Ultimate STEM Challenge. The ideas presented by the finalists show they’re applying their scientific thinking beyond the classroom to real-life scenarios in a creative and innovative way.”

The competition was developed as a result of ground-breaking research conducted by King’s College London, the research partner in BP’s Enterprising Science programme.

The research shows that despite 70 per cent of school children saying they learn “interesting things” in science, and that “scientists make a difference in the world”, only around 15 per cent aspire to becoming a scientist when they leave school.

The challenge aims to get young people excited about and to encourage them to continue studying STEM subjects and to pursue STEM careers.

According to Engineering UK, at all levels of education, Britain does not have the current capacity, or the required rate of growth, needed to meet the forecast demand for skilled engineers and technicians by 2022.