Two employees from Britvic’s Norwich factory had the right chemistry for inspiring school children to study science. Operations manager for ready drinks, Michael Clifford, and quality officer, Colin Clarke, were invited by Setpoint Essex to run a chemistry workshop.
Setpoint is a national organisation that promotes awareness of science-based jobs in industry. Its aim is to stop the decline in the number of pupils choosing to study science at GSCE. Britvic was one of a number of companies, including Masterfoods and Thames Water, invited to run presentations.
Colin was surprisingly undaunted at the prospect of six lectures to 20 students at a time. ‘I’m a scout leader so used to engaging kids,’ he says. ‘We showed films of everything from bottle blowing to lorry filling — all to a background of Prodigy’s Firestarter. Then we did loads of hands-on testing, such as Brix analysis, to get the children involved.’ It seemed to work. Students’ comments included: ‘I learned lots of new and interesting things about chemistry’ and ‘The content was good and easy to understand’. They also voted Britvic’s presentation the best.
Did you know that Britvic contributed £430k to its communities in 2007, and this year is supporting education in Cameroon via The Rainforest Foundation and our Really Wild Drinks Co., and is helping UNICEF raise money for their Emergency Relief fund.