Wigan schoolchildren inspired by behind-the-scenes Amazon tour

Dozesn of Marsh Green Primary School pupils saw behind the scenes at the 450,000ft sq Amazon fulfilment centre in Bolton, where they saw how the business picks and packs products to be shipped all over the UK and even around the world.

It was part of the Amazon Future Engineer project: a childhood-to-career programme offers both children and young adults the opportunity to participate in free STEM-related activities such as maths, science, engineering and technology.

The scheme is designed to inspire, educate, and equip people with the tools they need to become the inventors, innovators, and engineers of tomorrow.

Deputy head Craig Todd said: “Thank you so much to John and the team for welcoming us - the children had a wonderful time and found the tour really interesting! We haven’t been able to take our students out on a school trip since before Covid so it was a real treat for them to visit the Amazon fulfilment centre and learn more about careers in STEM.”

A pupil that attended the tour said: “I had a fun day at Amazon and enjoyed seeing lots of cool things at the fulfilment centre, like how the robots work alongside people to pick products, before they’re packaged up and sent to our homes.”

Amazon has also launched virtual school trips for primary and secondary school students to go behind the scenes at a fulfilment centre, exploring the technologies that power Amazon’s operations.

As part of the tour, students learn how Amazon delivers products from your online shopping cart, directly to your door and meet people behind the packages. Computer science concepts such as algorithms, cloud computing, efficiency, databases, quality control, hardware and software are all not only introduced but explained in real-life context.

The secondary school tour, recommended for ages 11+, dives even deeper on the computer science, robotics and machine learning involved in Amazon’s fulfilment process.

John Strydom, General Manager at Amazon in Bolton, said: “It was a pleasure to welcome Marsh Green Primary School to our fulfilment centre and give them an insight into the work we do at Amazon. The pupils were extremely inquisitive and attentive - we hope that they had fun and benefited from their visit.”