Outreach activities with young people

Our Education Outreach programme supports young people (age 3–18) and education professionals across the UK, building understanding of weather, climate and interrelated subjects while also showcasing the many education and career pathways into Met Office, wider STEM sector and Civil Service roles.

We aim to inspire interest in STEM and show how non-STEM subjects also support our work, connecting learning to career opportunities young people may not have considered, while also helping them to act with confidence in severe weather and a changing climate.

Sessions are delivered by Met Office employees (Education Outreach Ambassadors) who volunteer their time to bring real‑world expertise to our outreach, helping young people connect learning to practical applications in the workplace.

Education Outreach Options

Digital resources and self-led learning

Explore our downloadable and digital resources for curriculum-linked weather and climate learning, across a variety of subjects. Designed to support educators to deliver confidently, they enable engagement at a pace that suits your setting.

Our Educator Guide provides a good starting point, with links to resources on the following six themes:

• Forecasting and prediction
• Extreme weather
• Climate change
• Weather and climate stories
• Technology and innovation in weather
• People in weather and climate (Careers)

We also offer bite-size activities and other explainers and experiments.

Online engagement

The following live online sessions offer flexible access to Met Office expertise across the UK and further afield and, in some cases, support repeated interactions. 

Lightning Links offer short, repeated, interactions over Microsoft Teams. Two Ambassadors co-deliver to enable balanced gender representation (often one Early Career and the other more experienced) and sometimes including representation from another STEM or Civil Service organisation alongside the Met Office. These can run as two 10–15-minute sessions (intro, then Q&A), or as a 10–15-minute link each term across a year (or longer), helping young people to really get to know employees working in the STEM sector.

Discovery Live! are longer interactive sessions (60 mins–3 hrs) built around an activity, with accompanying teaching materials and time for discussion and Q&A. Examples include:

Space Weather Discovery Live! – 60–90 minutes with live demonstrations and Q&A, delivered in an interactive podcast format

Volcanic Ash Coding Discovery Live! – around 3 hours, with live start and closing sessions and independent classroom coding in between

Co-delivery of downloadable resources enables an educator to lead learning in class, with a Met Office Ambassador supporting via presentation materials, expert narratives and live demonstration of experiments on screen.

Themed webinars delivered by partners including Unifrog.

In-person engagement

Eduction Outreach Ambassadors can deliver in-person sessions aligned to the six themes listed in our Educator Guide, in a limited number of locations.

Career Insights and Work Experience

Our Forecasting Your Future online work experience programme and Data Science taster, both hosted by Springpod, offer insights and work experience from age 13. Full details of our online and in-person work experience can be found on the Met Office Careers Website.

How to request outreach sessions

Although we would like to fulfil every request for live interaction, demand is high and Met Office Ambassadors must balance volunteering with their job role obligations.  Due to travel requirements, in-person outreach is most limited.  We ask for at least 8 weeks’ notice for any outreach, and as much date/time flexibility as possible.  Providing more notice increases the likelihood that we can meet your request, as do applications for online outreach.

Please complete this Request Form with as much detail as possible, outlining the type of session and subject theme you woud like, and remember that you can also make use of our downloadable resources.

How we develop our Education Outreach provision

We develop our outreach using an inclusive, evidence-based approach, ensuring that resources and activities are impact‑focused and scalable.  All sessions and resources are developed and tested in consultation with our partner schools and colleges (based in Devon and the West Midlands), enabling us to continually improve our offer in response to the needs of schools, educators and young people.