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Halifax pupil wins Ordnance Survey national Moon Map symbol competition

Press Office

| 3 minute read
A year 10 pupil from Trinity Academy in Halifax has won our national Moon Map symbol competition. The competition was part of our inaugural virtual geospatial work experience programme that saw year 10 pupils from schools across the country participate in the remote five-day course.

Throughout the programme students were introduced to the latest mapping technologies such as drones, satellites and artificial intelligence, as well as some of the core skillsets used by geospatial professionals like GIS (geographic information systems), remote sensing and software and app development.

The schoolchildren then had the opportunity to put these new skills into practice by carrying out practical tasks on mapping the moon and creating symbols for a moon base, town planning for the future with accurate Ordnance Survey (OS) mapping and learning how location data and mapping can help in the response to emergency incidents via a Lego zombie apocalypse.

A lightning bolt with half fill colour represents the refuelling station
Rebecca's winning refuelling station symbol

For the Moon Mapping competition, the pupils were asked to imagine humans were planning on populating and settling on the moon, and they were shown geographic data visualisations that have been created by OS staff over the years.

They were then given four symbol ideas to choose from, an Apollo 11 landing site, a shuttle refuelling station, a Moon control base and a zero-gravity zone and asked to create a new symbol for any of the four.

Trinity Academy’s Rebecca Heathershaw beat off competition from other pupils across England and Wales to win the competition with her refuelling station symbol.

"I feel honoured to have won the competition, sometimes simplicity is all you need! This was a great opportunity for me as I would love to work in the geography sector so this has really opened my eyes to what I can do in my future."

Rebecca Heathershaw

Paul Naylor, Technical Relationship Consultant at Ordnance Survey and part of the judging panel, said: “The judges loved the symbols simplicity. It was not too detailed which made it easy to replicate and scale. It’s clear what the symbol represents and is a great addition to the Moon Map.”

Extract of moon map showing new refuelling station symbol
© Crown copyright and database rights. Ordnance Survey 2024

By creating a virtual work experience programme we were able to offer work experience to schoolchildren in different parts of the country and to twelve times more pupils than we could when we ran our traditional on-site programme at our Southampton HQ.

With the success of our inaugural programme, we plan to offer even more students the chance to participate next year and get a taste of what it is like to work in geospatial roles, work with geospatial technology and preview what geospatial career opportunities are available.

Chloe Mortimer, Student Progress Leader in Geography at Trinity Academy, said: “We were absolutely delighted with the work experience that OS provided for our students at Trinity Academy Halifax and we were ‘over the moon’ when we found out Rebecca won the OS Moon Map symbol competition.

“It really opened our students' eyes to the wide variety of careers that exist in the geospatial sector and just how many opportunities are available to them in this rapidly changing industry. Each day the students learnt from industry professionals and took part in some really exciting activities.

“All our students commented on how valuable the week was and many are planning a career in this sector in future!"


By Press Office

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