2023/2024

Youth STEMM Award

Participants’
handbook
Gold Level

YouthSTEMM ysawards.co.uk youthstemmaward

Hello and welcome
This booklet is designed to be your companion throughout your
journey to achieving a Youth STEMM Award at Gold level.
By taking part, you will develop your skills and experience across
a range of areas and create a record of achievement to help you
stand out in applications and interviews for higher education and
jobs.

The Gold level award is for students

who have committed to studying a
STEMM subject past Year 11 and requires
a minimum of 150 hours of activity
across the four strands to be completed.
It is usually for those who have already
achieved either a Bronze or Silver Award,
but this is not compulsory and if you are
enthusiastic and committed there is no Gold
reason why you can’t aim straight for Gold. award
By the end of the programme, we hope you’ll feel better prepared
and more confident to take your next steps into STEMM, whether
that’s through higher education, hands-on training or simply by
feeling more connected and interested in STEMM topics.

We hope you enjoy the journey, good luck!

Dr Simon Fox and Dr Samantha Fox,
Co-founders,
Youth STEMM Award CIC

STEMM stands for:

Science Technology Engineering Maths Medicine

Youth STEMM Award 2

About the Award:
For those who are new to the Youth STEMM Award, read on to
learn about the basics of how it works:

The Youth STEMM Award (YSA) is a skills framework for young

people, designed to support and inspire the next generation into
STEMM, which stands for: Science, Technology, Engineering,
Mathematics and Medicine.

As part of your journey to achieving a Youth STEMM Award, you’ll

need to take part in extracurricular activities and log them to the
YSA e-portfolio. When enough activity hours have been logged
and the criteria are met in each of the four strands (see page 4),
you’ll receive a certificate and a medal. Your e-portfolio can be
downloaded as a record of achievement for future applications
and interviews. Your coordinator will help guide you through the
programme, identify activities and sign them off as completed.

1 2 3

Undertake STEMM-based activities and decide which of

the four core strands they fit into
Log hours onto the e-portfolio to complete the strands
Accumulate virtual badges and build your portfolio
Receive a medal and certificate upon completion of
Award

3 Participants’ handbook 2023/2024

Skills you will develop:
By completing activities in these skill areas you will set yourself
up for success in your future STEMM career:

By inspiring the next generation you will

become a role model to younger children and
develop leadership skills and confidence.

By engaging the public you will develop

your communication skills and help your
family and community to appreciate STEMM
topics.

By developing skills and knowledge

you will explore topics over and above the
national curriculum in areas that interest you.

By shaping your future you will focus on

careers in STEMM and explore options you
may not have previously considered.

Top Tip:
These are the four YSA core
strands. You will need to
undertake activities in each of
these areas to complete your
Award.
Youth STEMM Award 4
 Achieving a Gold-level
Youth STEMM Award
In order to achieve your Gold Award, you will need to
undertake a minimum of 150 hours of STEMM-based
activities. You will also need to meet certain criteria in
each of the four strands. You must also be currently undertaking
at least one STEMM qualification at Level 3. For the Gold Award
you must cover all STEMM areas in each of the strands. You
should also identify one area that you will focus on in-depth for
the Developing and Shaping strands

An activity can count for more than

one area of STEMM, for example Top Tip:
a visit to a museum might involve You can take as long as
both Science and Technology. you need to complete
Before you start an activity, its a your Award.
good idea to be clear on which
strand it covers, and which of the five STEMM areas are involved.
For each activity you undertake, you’ll need to identify an
Assessor. This should be an adult who can authorise that you took
part in the activity and add a comment to your e-portfolio.

If you are undertaking an activity at school or at home, your

School or College Coordinator can act as your Assessor. If you are
taking part in an activity at somewhere else, your Assessor should
be someone involved in the activity, such as a work experience
host. Check with your Coordinator if you are unsure about
whether someone is a suitable Assessor.

You can start and complete your Award at any time of the year
and take as long as you need to undertake the required hours. You
can continue working towards your Award over the holidays and
can even roll into the next school year. Achieving Gold level can
take around 18 months to complete, so we recommend starting
your Award at the beginning of Year 12 if you can.

5 Participants’ handbook 2023/2024

What you need to do in each strand
at Gold level:
30 hours minimum of inspiring the
next generation

30 hours minimum of engaging

the wider public

45 hours minimum of developing your

skills and knowledge

45 hours minimum of shaping your

future career

More detail on each of these strands can be found in the

following pages of this handbook, along with some suggested
activities.

Steps to success:
Sign into the YSA e-portfolio and complete your
profile
Identify activities and nominate Assessors

Undertake and log activities

Complete the strands

Submit for moderation

Achieve award!

Youth STEMM Award 6

What counts as an activity?
When looking for potential activities there are a few things you
need to check:

Does it involve at least one area of STEMM?

Is it outside normal lessons and homework?
Which YSA strand does it best fit into?

You cannot count time spent in regular lessons or on homework

but you can include other activities carried out at school such
after-school clubs:

Yes (if STEMM related): Does NOT Count:

After school clubs, open Work carried out in
evenings and public events normal lessons
School-organised trips Homework
Extra study in your spare Exam-specific revision of
time to learn more about topics learnt in school
a topic that you were Activities that don’t involve
introduced to at school STEMM

When deciding which strand your activity fits into, remember

you can split the time (but you can’t double count!).

Example activity:

= 1h 2h
3-hour university
visit
7 Participants’ handbook 2023/2024
 Inspiring the next
generation
In this strand you will develop leadership skills
and act as a role model. You should work directly
with young people and produce your own resources aimed at
inspiring them about STEMM topics or careers. Your audience
should be the same age as yourself or younger. For the Gold
Award you should:
Complete at least 30 hours of activities in this strand over the
course of the Award.
Work with at least two different groups of students or a
minimum of two different individual students, including
those from another school or organisation (e.g. at a youth
group).
Develop and deliver a STEMM activity or project for younger
students
Mentor or tutor at least two other young people and teach
some STEMM content
Top Tip:
You can work on your
Some example activities: own or as part of a team

Run a DNA themed activity with a local youth group or

primary school. This could be on your own or part of a team.

Mentor or tutor a young person (can be a sibling) on a STEMM

topic, or help with homework or home schooling.

Work in a small group with your teacher to organise a

lunchtime science talk for your peers – invite a speaker
from one of the YSA partner organisations or a local STEM
Ambassador to give a talk.

Make a poster for British Science Week to communicate a

STEMM topic that is aimed at young people, to be displayed
in school or in a community location.
Youth STEMM Award 8
 Engaging
the public
In this strand you will develop your
communication skills by helping the public to
better understand STEMM topics. You will ideally
take part in face-to-face activities at events, but can also use the
internet for online activities. You can work with your family and
your local community, including at your school or college. You
should use multiple forms of communication including written,
oral and creative design and should demonstrate the use of social
media or technology (ie digital skills). For the Gold Award you
should:

Complete at least 30 hours of activities in this strand over the

course of the Award.

Help to develop and deliver an activity to engage the public

at two public events in different settings (one can be your
school).
Take part in a debate or deliver an oral presentation (e.g. with
slides) to a group or at a conference
Create a poster to present to the public and produce a written
blog or article
Top Tip:
Some example activities: How about writing a blog
for the YSA website?
Create a video to inform and
educate, for example about environmental topics.

Write an article for the school newspaper or magazine, or

launch one if there isn’t one already.

Plan and deliver an experiment for a school open day or

organise a science fair

Create a poster to be displayed in a public place or other

organisation (like a residential home, or community centre).
9 Participants’ handbook 2023/2024
 Developing skills and
knowledge
In this strand you will enhance your understanding
of topics related to STEMM, including learning new
skills that are beyond the national curriculum. By undertaking
activities in this strand, you will be able to explore areas that
interest you and evidence your commitment and enthusiasm to
extend beyond the curriculum. For
the Gold Award you should: Top Tip:
Activities can be virtual or
in person
Complete at least 45 hours of skill
development in this strand over the course of the Award.
Produce a research project on a new topic, such as an EPQ (a
maximum of 25 hours can be used from an EPQ)
Attendance at three events held at a minimum of two STEMM
venues or online (such as attending a webinar or talk)
You must be doing at least one STEMM Level 3 qualification

Some example activities:

Take part in an after-school club, or undertake a CREST
Award or Big Bang Project to learn new skills.

Visit a science museum or other organisation that involves

STEMM.
Watch, listen and read educational STEMM-related content,
such as the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, science
podcasts or the Youth STEMM Award newsletter.
Time spent researching a STEMM-related topic that you go
on to ‘inspire the next generation’ or ‘engage the public’ with.

Youth STEMM Award 10

 Shaping your future
In this strand you will focus on exploring further
and higher education, training and careers in
STEMM. You are expected to research different
pathways and find out about areas that you may
not have previously considered. The aim is to help you widen
your future options and make informed decisions. For the Gold
Award you should:
Complete at least 45 hours of activities in this strand, a
maximum of 25 hours can count from any individual activity.
At least 25 hours must be linked directly to STEMM careers,
and must include work experience, or shadowing.
Show evidence of working towards a STEMM career pathway
and take part in practise interviews with someone outside of
your setting where possible.
Identify one area of STEMM to research careers in more
detail, ideally interviewing
someone who works in that Top Tip:
field to find out about their Check out the Wellcome
career. Produce a written Connecting Science speaker
article to summarise your series featuring diverse role
models in STEMM
findings.

Some example activities: Click the

QR code:
Research a STEMM-related career to find out
what the job involves and what qualifications
are required.
Undertake work experience or work-shadowing to
experience a STEMM-related career (virtual or in-person).
Attend university or college open days to explore options
for future study, practise applications and carry out mock
interviews under the guidance of a mentor or careers advisor.
Attend a careers fair or watch videos recorded by STEMM
professionals to learn about their job, for example the My
STEMM Future Speaker series.
11 Participants’ handbook 2023/2024
Who is supporting you?
At your organisation:
Your school or college Coordinator
Top Tip:
Your YSA Coordinator can
will guide you through the
help you plan out your
programme and help to you to
activities and make sure
get started. If you are registered
they are appropriate for each
independently, your Coordinator
strand
will be from the YSA team. Your
Coordinator will moderate the
activities that you log and check you have provided a good
description and enough evidence.

All the activities you undertake also need to be signed off by an

Assessor, someone who was involved with the activity and can
confirm that you took part. They can also leave feedback which
forms part of your portfolio. Your Coordinator can act as your
Assessor for activities that they are involved with, or activities
that you undertake at home or online where there is no other
independent person involved.

At home:
We recommend letting the people you live with know that you
are working towards a Youth STEMM Award. They might have
some ideas for ways you could gain hours by doing activities at
home. If you have younger children in your family you could do
activities with them for ‘Inspiring the next generation’.

Online:
Want to plan an activity with another group? Why not reach out
to the Youth STEMM Award community online. You could plan
a joint remote activity and maybe even ask one of our patrons
to get involved. Connect with us on social media to share your
stories and reach a wider audience.

Youth STEMM Award 12

Setting up your e-portfolio:
If you have already completed a Bronze or Silver level Youth
STEMM Award this process should be familiar to you. For anyone
new to the Award, read on for an overview of how it works.

Your e-portfolio is where you should log all of the STEMM

activities you take part in during the course of your Award.
It will help keep you on track with your progress and let you know
what you need to do to complete. As you progress you will unlock
virtual badges that will be added into your e-portfolio. You can
download your portfolio at any time to help with applications for
college, university or jobs.

Once your Coordinator has added you to the system, you’ll

receive an email asking you to activate your account. Follow the
link to complete your registration and set up your password.

You’ll need to complete your profile including your school year

and postcode. It is important that this information is correct and
up-to-date so that you don’t miss out on any opportunities. If
anything changes you can update it by clicking ‘edit profile’.
We look after this data very carefully and you can read our full
privacy policy by visiting www.ysawards.co.uk.

You are now ready to log your first activity!

13 Participants’ handbook 2023/2024

How to submit an activity:
Top Tip:
1 To log an activity, visit
www.ysawards.co.uk and
follow the link to sign in to
the e-portfolio

Choose the strand that best matches the activity and

2
click ‘add new activity’.

Enter the details on

the form. Be sure to
include a clear title
and description so
that your coordinator
understands exactly
what you did. This
includes the length
of time the activity
took, the date it took
place and the area(s) of
STEMM it involved.

Save the submission

as a draft to continue
later or click ‘submit’
when you are happy
that you have included
all the information.

Youth STEMM Award 14

Finally, provide the name and
email address of an adult who Top Tip:
You can only include
was involved with the activity,
activities that you have
eg. a work experience host. They
taken part in since you
will receive an automated email
registered for Youth STEMM
asking them to verify that you took
Award.
part and have the option to add
comments. If you did an activity at
home, such as watching a TV documentary, or at school, tick the
box ‘use my coordinators details’.

Activity submission checklist:

Activity title:
This should be a clear summary of what you did – e.g. ‘Attended a
Chemistry lecture presented by John Innes Centre’ or ‘Supported
my younger sister with her Maths homework’. If you’re not too
sure if you’ve achieved this, ask yourself – would someone
reading the title know what the activity was about?

Provider:
Select the organisation that provided the activity or pick
‘Undertaken at home’ if appropriate. This information helps us
to tell our partners how many young people have been enjoying
their activities. If the organisation who provided the activity is
not listed, select ‘other’ and type the name of the organisation
into the box. If the activity took place at school, you can select
this as an option. Be sure to explain how it was outside of normal
lessons.
15 Participants’ handbook 2023/2024
Hours:
Only include hours that you spent
Top Tip:
If an activity was undertaken
learning and participating in
at school, be sure to explain
STEMM during the activity. Don’t
how it was outside your
count breaks or travel time.
normal lessons

STEMM Discipline:
Tick all the areas you think apply to your activity.

Evidence:
Including evidence helps your coordinator to see what you
did and help them moderate the activity. Evidence can be any
resources you created, screen shots or pictures of the activity you
participated in. Its also a great way for you to reflect back on the
activity in the future.

How to write a good description:

A description is where all the action happens!
This is your opportunity to showcase your activity and tell us
how exciting it was. Descriptions are rejected when there is too
little information, so make sure to provide at least three
complete sentences about the activity.
You could answer the following questions:

What was the activity?

What did you learn from it?
What interested you the most?
What there anything that surprised you about
what you did or learned?
Has it inspired you to do anything else or explore
something further?

Youth STEMM Award 16

Remember to regularly log in and check the opportunities section
for links to activities and surveys which can earn you additional
time towards your Award. You can export your portfolio at
anytime as a printable file.

Completing your Award

When you have logged enough
hours and satisfied all the
criteria you can submit your
e-portfolio for moderation.
Your coordinator will check
through to ensure you have
done enough to receive
your Gold Youth STEMM
Award.

When you complete, you

will receive a medal and
certificate. This is a great time
to reflect on the skills you have The Youth STEMM Award digital
developed and celebrate your badge will be issued on completion.
achievements. Why not get in Look out for the email to claim your
touch and send us a picture of badge!
you with your Award?
We hope you have enjoyed the experience and learnt something
about yourself too.

17 Participants’ handbook 2023/2024

Inspiring ambassadors
We are delighted to have the support of inspirational role models
and expert science communicators, who are passionate and
committed about inspiring the next generation.
We
each have
Professor Ben Garrod the potentia
Evolutionary biologist, l to be
anything w
Conservationist, e want,
no matter w
broadcaster and author h o we are
or where we
are from
@Ben_garrod and the YSA
promotes
that at every
opportunity
.
Lizzie Daly
Biologist, naturalist and
wildlife presenter
@LizzieDalyWild

Dr Nira Chamberlain OBE

Mathematical Modeller
@ch_nira
Mark Thompson
Astronomer, author
and broadcaster
@Astronomer_Mark

Dr Marcia Philbin
Chief Executive of the
Faculty of Pharmaceutical
If Medicine
something
ad
like the YSA h
when
been around
l, I
I was at schoo
k I’d have Maddie Moate
honestly thin on
re d m y p as si YouTube filmmaker and
explo
for sc ie n ce BAFTA winning presenter
soon er . @maddiemoate

Youth STEMM Award 18

Our partners
The Youth STEMM Award is supported by a number of prestigious
organisations. We thank them for their support which enables
us to be able to deliver the Award for the benefit of schools and
young people:

A UK top 25 university and part of one

of the largest scientific communities
in Europe
www.uea.ac.uk

Wellcome Connecting Science’s

mission is to enable everyone to
explore genomic science and its
impact on research, health and society
wellcomeconnectingscience.org

A world-leading international centre

of excellence in plant science and
microbiology
jic.ac.uk

A world-class research institution,

focusing on basic cell and molecular
biology with an emphasis on healthy
ageing through the human lifecycle
babraham.ac.uk

19 Participants’ handbook 2023/2024

 Connect with us:

[email protected]
@YouthSTEMM
ysawards.co.uk
youthstemmaward

Youth STEMM Award CIC

Centrum
Norwich Research Park
Norwich
NR4 7UG
Registered in England No. 10143381