In a first, a group of Bermuda High School students got to spend the few days before summer break tackling science projects at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology.

The trip was part of the school’s second annual Steam week, for Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Maths.

The programme was broadened this year to embrace its entire secondary department. The UOIT’s mandate includes encouraging more girls to study Steam topics, according to a statement from the university, which said that BHS “stood out”.

Such initiatives are an increasing priority for the school, according to Catherine Hollingsworth, deputy principal. BHS has been the first school outside Canada to be invited to the institute, with 16 female students learning in “a lab setting, a crime-scene house and one of the largest climatic wind tunnels in the world”, according to Catherine McMahon, the ICT head for BHS.