Enrich your students’ learning with this fantastic STEM reading challenge as our We Wonder series returns to explore Our Blue Planet.
Partnering with Turner & Townsend for a fifth consecutive year, our fun and informative We Wonder series is back!
Aim of the reading challenge
The We Wonder: Our Blue Planet STEM reading challenge is free to enter and aimed at students across the UK aged 7 to 14 years (KS2 and KS3, or P4 to S3).
Following the framework of read, inform, protect, students are tasked with designing a campaign poster to protect our precious water resources. Exploring a range of information and ideas, this challenge not only encourages reading for pleasure and reading diversely, it supports disciplinary literacy by increased engagement with non-fiction texts.
Running the reading challenge in school
- Resources consist of teacher guidelines, a welcome video, a fun quiz and a suggested reading list.
- Teacher guidelines include topical information on our water sources including the impact of climate change, pollution and overfishing.
- To enter the competition, your selected campaign poster entries need to be submitted via the website by Friday 28 March.
- Taking it further: the teacher guidelines include additional ideas on how to explore the topic of protecting Our Blue Planet in and outside the classroom.
- You will need to have as a minimum, free membership of the National Literacy Trust to be able to access the resources.
Read. Inform. Protect!
Entering the competition
The We Wonder: Our Blue Planet reading challenge will close on Friday 28 March 2025.
If you complete the challenge in the timeframe then we invite you to submit your two best entries from your cohort to be judged by Turner & Townsend volunteer judges.
There will be a category winner for both ages 7 to 11 and 11 to 14. The prize for the winner in each category will be a book token and a box of books for the school.
In addition, Turner & Townsend are looking to award highly commended prizes consisting of a box of books for a number of schools that enter the competition.
Submit your entry
About Turner & Townsend
Turner & Townsend is a construction-based company, which means they help to build all kinds of things, like skyscrapers, museums, airports and railways.
Some of their most famous projects in the UK are the Shard in London, the V&A in Dundee, Heathrow Airport and HS2 highspeed railway line. Turner & Townsend also works all over the world, and with 112 offices in 45 countries.
Sustainability is very important to Turner & Townsend, and when they are organising a building project they make sure they are doing their best to protect the environment. They have recently launched a target to be net-zero by 2030, which means that they aim to reduce the amount of greenhouse gasses they produce as much as possible and invest in projects that actively help the environment.
If you have any queries about our Reading Champions Reading Challenge series then don’t hesitate to contact us at competitions@literacytrust.org.uk.
National Literacy Trust Reading Champions is supported by ALCS.
Find out more about the National Reading Champions Quiz and Challenges.
Explore useful teaching resources developed by ALCS to support understanding and communication about copyright with guides for children, young people and teachers.
Watch this ALCS animation as a great starting point to helping your students understand copyright in a fun and interactive way. Karl Nova uses his voice and talent to bring the importance of copyright for writers and artists to life in this video from ALCS.