Promoting egalitarian engineering learning among youngest students

During the week of 11F, CiTIUS is proposing an engineering workshop for teachers and children of elemental and primary school, an educational stage that is not usually included in the efforts of the research community to raise awareness of the more technical areas.

Eva Cernadas, researcher at CiTIUS, will lead the centre's new proposal to raise awareness of engineering among the youngest audience during the week of 11F (International Day of Women and Girls in Science). The activity, entitled 'The use of play and art to educate in engineering from childhood' consists of an online and asynchronous workshop, aimed at children in infant and early primary education. It relates aspects of the lives of the youngest members of the public (chores, everyday games...) with the world of engineering, from an egalitarian point of view and without necessarily using technology in the learning process. 

The idea of this workshop is to provide the people in charge of teaching at these educational levels with pedagogical tools that can help them to introduce different concepts related to the world of engineering into their daily practice, which are generally far removed from the classroom until later ages. "I don't know of any activities aimed at infant and primary school students," says researcher Eva Cernadas. "However, this stage is very important in fostering new vocations, as it is often the time when students start to lose interest in science in general, and engineering in particular. 

"Although it may be an unknown word in early childhood, engineering has been with us since we were born," the researcher continues. "With this activity, designed specifically for an age group between 4 and 8 years old, I intend to make children and teachers aware of the number of everyday tasks, including games, in which we are practising engineering". "We also want to do it from an egalitarian point of view, making sure that playing at being an engineer is familiar and fun," he concludes.

The videos simulate a classroom workshop, but without the feedback of a two-way interaction. The experience and pedagogical resources of the teaching staff will complete the learning objectives. 

Two days of face-to-face workshops for all educational levels will be raffled among the public primary schools in Galicia registered in February and March at the winning schools, which will take place in April on the occasion of the 'Girls in ICT Week'.

To participate in this activity, schools must register via the official workshop website.