Bryan Lipscombe and Bill Sheppard, of the University of Chester, will travel to Wembley Stadium on Friday for an awards ceremony celebrating exemplary volunteering projects and volunteers who show significant commitment to their activities.

PhD student Bryan, 40, has been shortlisted for the Outstanding Project Award, in recognition of the success of his Sticky Exhibits initiative, a ground-breaking project promoting environmental awareness through a series of interactive exhibits and props.

Exhibits include a giant 'loo' to promote water waste awareness, an 'eco-dome', a functioning solar hot water system and a computer arcade game to encourage recycling.

Bryan takes the project to events across the region and makes the exhibits available for use by other organisations. He said: "We aim to provide those promoting more sustainable lifestyles with access to high quality environmental exhibits and models which captivate, inspire and provoke positive change."

Bill, 50, has been nominated for the Student Volunteering Award for his work to create a sensory garden at Dee Banks Special School in Huntington, Chester. The second-year Archaeology student took the lead on the project, which also involved other dedicated university volunteers and took more than a year to complete.

The garden is designed to engage play in children and young people with severe learning disabilities, and includes recycled features from a previous garden project at the school. He said: "It was a great project to work on – it is so inspiring to see the children's smiling faces. I'd love to win the prize and the Volunteering team in the University's Student Support and Guidance Department deserve great credit."

Maria Skinner, from the university's Student Development team, added: "We're thrilled that two of our volunteers are receiving the sort of recognition which we know they deserve."