Lets do Engineering

Let's do Engineering is a project bringing together engineering professionals, schools, nurseries, musicians, artists, storytellers and children to design fun and engaging engineering activities. 

Funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council under the Engagement Champions Awards, the project aims to develop an improved understanding of how young children develop an engineering identity and make practical recommendations for design and implementation of engineering interventions aimed at 3-7-year-olds.

By age seven children have already narrowed their aspirations based on stereotypes. We want to readjust this because to tackle current and future challenges the world needs more engineers, and diverse engineers, and because we believe every child deserves to dream big. Our goal is to create fun, engaging and inspiring resources, based on engineering, to support play and learning. 

We will investigate things like:

• How do 3-7-year-olds view engineers and engineering? Is there a difference based on factors like gender, ethnicity, socio-economic class etc?
• What are the perceptions and attitudes of teachers, parents and carers towards engineering?
• What kinds of activities and resources are most effective at challenging stereotypes and changing views of engineering?
• How can teachers best support engineering activities, e.g. what kind of language, teaching style etc is most effective?
• What are the best techniques for parents and carers to facilitate interest in engineering?

You can find out more about the project and access the resources created on the Let's do Engineering website. The project is led by Dr Helen Bridle, Associate Professor in Bioengineering at Heriot-Watt University.

Meet our Engineers