We recently attended a local primary school in Ipswich to give Year 5 students an insight into the construction industry to celebrate STEM week.
We spoke to the eager construction professionals of the future about what we do as an M+E contractor and chatted about different types of services within buildings that provide comfort. We challenged the children to work together and be creative in groups to build the tallest structure possible that could support a hardboiled egg. Using paper straws, paper, masking tape, and paper clips there were some interesting ideas put forward. The winning team created a structure tower which extended over 90cm tall. Quite a feat! We also took along a few safe to handle, battery driven circuits that the children were able to build themselves to help illustrate how electricity works.
We had a brilliant response from all the children and staff and received a nice follow up message from one of the teachers:
“Thank you so much for sending your colleagues to Sidegate Primary. The children in Year 5 had an amazing time learning about engineering while building structures to form the tallest tower (which needed to hold the weight of an egg). They were thoroughly engaged in learning about electricity, looking at: wind power, solar power and switches.
As teachers, we feel it was one of the best interactive STEM visits as all the children were so engaged and loved taking part in the active tasks. Your colleagues were able to simplify terms for the children to understand while giving them an interesting insight into your world of work.
Thanks again for a wonderful morning of learning.”
We were delighted to get involved in STEM week and look forward to some budding mechanical and electrical engineers coming our way in a few years time!
