The eLibrary celebrates its first birthday

It is quite difficult for the team at the National STEM Centre to believe that the eLibrary is now one year old, but last Wednesday evening we were delighted to welcome guests to a celebration of that very birthday.

This event gave us a wonderful opportunity to thank those responsible for helping us to some major milestones. And we certainly couldn't have asked for a more appropriate venue - the stunning BT Tower in London.

Since its launch in 2010 the eLibrary has grown to hold 2,500 support resources for teachers of the STEM subjects. This year has also seen progress in other areas of the National STEM Centre's work. Over 4,000 visitors to the Centre in York have experienced the physical library, which now holds the UK's largest open collection of teaching and learning resources to support STEM. And away from York, hundreds of school and college Senior Leaders have attended STEM conferences hosted by major business partners, in order to share expertise, and strenghten links with their regional STEM support networks.


During his opening welcome, Sir Mike Tomlinson gave us a few pieces of data to mull over whilst waiting for the lift:

Sir Mike Tomlinson opened the event

There is certainly scope for calculation activities around these figures - something that wasn't lost on our Mathematics Specialist, Lydia Showan, and Pat Hughes from BT, so perhaps we can expect a new addition to the eLibrary maths resources in due course.

A little time with Google also reveals that - at 177 metres tall - the Tower never held the world title for tallest building, although it was London's highest viewing point for twenty years until 1982. And the reason for selecting 177m? This was judged to be the height necessary to protect microwave radiation 'line of sight' against disruption from several new buildings being planned for the city in the 1960s.

Communication functions from the BT Tower are now largely delivered through fibre optics, but it still offers a great context for exploring some properties of microwave radiation. Over recent years the Tower has also played an important part in air pollution studies so something for chemistry teachers too!

A real highlight of Wednesday evening was hearing how two of our Teacher Associates, Helen Neary and Mike Sands, are making use of the eLibrary. No doubt in future they will be using their Tower trip as a context for learning, so there's a selection of resources below just to start them off.

Helen Neary and Mike Sands shared their experience of using the eLibrary

Looking forward

Whilst we are delighted with this year's progress, there remains much to do to ensure that the National STEM Centre provides an ever-improving service for teachers.

Our priorities next year include the continued growth of the eLibrary, such as the addition of video material from the Teachers TV archive. Online we will be introducing new functionality to the Community area of our website, which offers a platform for collaborative projects that is open to all with an interest in STEM education.

Alongside online developments, we look forward to continuing to welcome teachers in person to the Centre, which in addition to the physical library offers meeting facilities for individuals and departments working on curriculum planning. We also encourage STEM partner organisations to use these facilities to support their own programmes of work with schools and colleges.

Many thanks to everyone who joined us last week, and of course to all the partners who are working with us to make the eLibrary and online Community useful tools for teachers of STEM subjects.

We wish in particular to thank BT for hosting us, and especially Pat Hughes and Jo Upward for making that a possibility. As part of BT's commitment to supporting STEM education, their IT Ambassador scheme has already recruited 300 employees to work with schools and colleges to enrich young people's learning experiences.


It will be difficult to "top" this next year (sorry, I couldn't resist), but with the ongoing support of contributors to the eLibrary we will try our utmost to do so.

Further information

The arbiter for title of world's tallest building is the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat.

Details of BT's learning and skills support, including the IT Ambassador scheme, are available here.

IT Ambassadors is part of the UK-wide STEM Ambassador programme implemented by STEMNET.

Resource links

Uses of electromagnetic radiation (ages 11-16) - Medical Physics in the Electromagnetic Spectrum

Introducing the source-detector model for radiation (ages 14-16) - Nuffield Pathways in Science

Modelling waves with jelly babies (11-16) - Institue of Physics

Air pollution (14-16) - SATIS Revisited

Secrets of the Ice (11-14) - SYCD