Well it’s about a week since we ran the South West Flood & Coastal stand at the 2024 Bournemouth Air Festival STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) village, where we directly engaged with in excess of 1500 people during the event (and that’s probably on the low side). I’ve now had time to reflect on the experience and learning gained so thought I’d share my key points:

• Running a stand for 8 hours a day for three straight days would not have been possible without the fantastic support for my colleagues at South West Flood & Coastal, as well as those from Boskalis who are currently on site constructing the Hengistbury Head Long Groyne. Across the three days, there were 18 of us in total taking shifts to work on the stand.

• If you want to draw kids (young and old) to a stand, having a wave tank is a great draw. We had line-ups waiting to have a go to try and flood a lego dinosaur and house and at times it was surrounded by 20 or more at a time. So a huge thank you to Dorset Coast Forum for the loan of their new wave tank.

• Speaking of the wave tank, if you want to test one to destruction, having it in near constant use for 8 hours a day by enthusiastic children is a good way to do it. We lost the original paddle towards the end of day 1 but thanks to some speedy work by one of my colleagues, we had a new one in place for the start of day 2 and it survived the rest of the event.

• Still with the wave tank (what can I say – I really liked using it), it was really interesting to see the choices kids would make to protect the lego dinosaur from flooding. We gave them a choice of hard or soft engineering solution, and more often than not they chose the soft engineering solution. I think the future of coastal risk management using nature-based solutions could be in good hands – hopefully one or two of those we engaged with now know that there is a possible future career doing that.

• We didn’t just have a wave tank though. We also had models of the ecological enhancements being installed as part of the Hengistbury Head Long Groyne scheme – people were really interested in them and unanimously thought they were a great idea to provide for more marine habitat as part of this coastal defence project.

Overall it was a great event to be a part of and I can’t wait to be able to attend future events as part of implementing our new STEM engagement plan with the ambition of inspiring the next generation of flood and coastal engineers and scientists.