A School has opened up a new facility which it hopes will encourage more students to think about science and technology careers - particularly girls.

The new STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths) room at Ysgol OM Edwards near Bala means children can take part in new in depth activities, research for projects and learn more about engineering.

Deputy headteacher, Sion Tudur said: “It gives us the chance to do cross-curricular activities across the subjects of science, technology, engineering and maths.

“It’s a room where we can do various activities to boost the children’s confidence and helps them to be creative.

“We’ve done a lot of work in years five and six on bridges and they’re now building their own out of wood, so there’ll be plenty of work going on in there over the next year.

“We’re hoping to do work on the weather and we’ve had the chance to do a bit of coding with robots.

“It’s also a library and internet room, but it’s also about being creative, and it’ll really helped to push the girls specifically to raise their confidence.”

One of the main problems in STEM courses is that women are under-represented in those careers, making it harder for girls to imagine themselves in those careers.

Sion continued: “Girls now want to be engineers, which is fantastic. We had Jones Brothers, they came in to talk to the children about civil engineering, and I think they’ve been quite enthusiastic after that.”