Our journey begins right here at Staffs Uni in Stoke-On-Trent, known for its pottery, coal mining and steel works, but also a thrill seekers destination, as you may be aware it is home to one of the greatest theme parks in Europe, Alton Towers Resort. With exciting rollercoasters and woodland scenery, it draws in an average of two million guests per year! More impressive than this, our step goal today, once completed, will have seen us walk Alton Towers’ longest rollercoaster, Galactica, over 10,000 times! We will be posting other interesting facts and figures throughout the day like this one, we encourage you to follow us on Twitter (@StaffsLSE) to hear more of these, but to also get photos and updates on step goals as we progress.

As the steps add up today, we will be dropping in on some exciting places to discuss where our students have ventured off to with placement opportunities through Staffs. To begin meet Jaime-Lee Cunningham, final year Psychology student here at Staffs, who was given an excellent placement opportunity right here in the heart of the Students Union.

During this two-year period Jaime-Lee was not only elected as Vice President but became President of the Students Union. Like yourselves today, Jaime-Lee was experiencing her very own journey through Staffs, this placement gave Jamie-Lee the confidence and ability to thrive within the environment and to achieve to her highest ability, picking up essential skills along the way like time management and public speaking. As our starting point is Staffs, it seems the right moment as Jaime-Lee says herself in this short clip, that a huge thanks must go to all the people behind the scenes at Staffs Uni that make all the cogs go round smoothly. This enables our students to venture out on these incredible placements that we will be visiting on our journey today.

Blog written by Staffordshire University placement students: Adam Olivier  Level 5 BSc (Hons) Biomedical Science;  Kaliya Rostron  Level 5 BSc (Hons) Biomedical Science; Steven Lloyd-Jones Level 5 BSc (Hons) Biology

Welcome to the 2018 Big Bang Global Step Challenge at Staffs Uni! Here at Staffs we are proud to be taking you on a journey to far reaching parts of the globe to visit our students who have undertaken placements around the world, all of which is made possible through the tremendous outreach a place of Staffs stature has to offer. Our aim today is to reach towards 10,000,000 steps, this is our first step of the journey, and with your help we will travel all over the globe!

Take part as an individual or school group and enter our Global Step Challenge competition.  There will be prizes for participation rates for teams/school groups.

Collect your pedometer at registration point for West Midlands Big Bang or on campus at the Science Trailer on 19 June.  Or use you own phone/pedometer to measure your steps today.  Stay up-to-date with progress of the challenge here on our blog or on Twitter @StaffsLSE.

Thanks for joining us and let us see where our combined step counts can take us during the West Midlands Big Bang Fair

1. Collect your free pedometer from the registration desk upon arrival at the event.  Exhibitors, ambassadors and Staffordshire University staff are also taking part using their own step tracking devices (phones, pedometers, Fitbit, etc…)
2. Track your steps throughout the event.
3. Brilliant and friendly Global Step Ambassadors will be encouraging you and collecting step counts throughout the event.  You can enter either individual step counts, or group step counts.
4. If you don’t get a chance to tell one of our ambassadors your step count, you can send it direct to the data project.  Download the app Epicollect5.  It is available for Android phones and tablets, iPhones and iPads.  The app is completely free.  Once installed search for “The Big Bang Global Step Challenge”.  Alternatively you can search for the project at five.epicollect.net/projects (note you will need to log on with google to enter steps on the website).  No log-on details are required to enter steps on campus (step 3).
5. Stay up-to-date with progress of the Challenge here on our blog or on Twitter @StaffsLSE

The team at Staffordshire University are preparing their best walking shoes ready for the West Midlands Big Bang Fair on 19 June.

We will be asking you to join us in this active step challenge and record the total number of steps you take on 19 June.

We will show you how many steps it takes to see the world on 19 June as we follow our Staffordshire University placement students to locations such as Germany, Africa and Japan.

Take part as an individual or school group and enter our Global Step Challenge competition.

Can we as a group reach 2, 5 or 10 million steps?  How far can we go?

Collect your pedometer at registration point for West Midlands Big Bang or on campus at the Science Trailer on 19 June. Stay up-to-date with progress of the challenge here on our blog or on Twitter @StaffsLSE.