Pictured during their visit to Rathfarnham Educate Together National School are (L-R): Niall Hanratty, Aymen Rzigui and Ernest Etim.
On Tuesday, Ernest Etim, Aymen Rzigui and I visited the third-class pupils at Rathfarnham Educate Together National School in Dublin. Our visit was in support of the Engineers Ireland STEPS Young Engineers Award programme, which encourages third and fourth-class pupils and their teachers to explore the world of engineering by developing an engineering project to help improve their local community.
Aymen, Ernest and I began the morning by exploring what it is an engineer does and then asking the class to think about how engineering influences their everyday lives. We encouraged the pupils to look for the engineering all around them, from the buses they take to school to the school building itself, while emphasising that they already possessed many of the skills an engineer draws upon during a typical day onsite or in a design office: teamwork, problem solving and creativity.
The highlight of our visit was hearing the pupils discuss how they would address the many challenges we face as a society, including the lack of housing and community spaces for children to play. They were bursting with ideas on how, for example, building materials and shipping containers could be recycled for new purposes.
The visit ended with our team challenging the class to work in groups to design, prototype, test and refine some paper aeroplanes. The pupils dove into the task, showing off their critical thinking skills, finding novel ways to make their aircrafts fly further, such as adding larger wings, and making the noses of their planes more aerodynamic.
Our thanks to the pupils' teacher, Tara O Brien, for welcoming us into her class and encouraging the girls and boys to engage so wholeheartedly in our activities.
