The big switch…
It’s that time again when Engineering Educates draws one campaign to a close and starts another!
Every two years, the team at the Science & Engineering Education Research and Innovation Hub at The University of Manchester embrace the opportunity to create a brand new Engineering Educates campaign.
This year is no different, and we are delighted to have partnered with the UK Robotic Autonomous System Network, or more simply known as UK-RAS!
Fear not though, all the resources from the Engineering Educates Farmvention campaign are being parcelled up and will be in a new archive, as we know many teachers and schools benefited from these.
Are you looking for how to embed real-world contexts in the learning experience?
Are your learners ready for more practical learning that is engaging and meaningful?
Do you finding searching for high-quality resources to raise awareness in STEM careers just too time consuming?
For these reasons and many more, the Engineering Educates Robotics Challenge will be a welcome addition to your planning for 2024/2025 academic year.
So what’s in store?
8 ready-to-use sets of lesson plans and resources for primary and lower secondary teachers
Research-informed teaching approaches that will invigorate your Design & Technology, Computer Science, Science and Literacy learning in the context of real-world robotics
A bite-size, pick-and-mix approach means you can choose activity resources that suit your learners’ interests and the space in your curriculum
“This is the campaign for you if you’re looking for an off-the-shelf set of resources and professional development to enliven D&T, computing, science and literacy in context. The bite-size approach means you can select what fits your interests and time.”
We’re an inclusive and non-competitive campaign. All resources have been designed ‘by teachers-for teachers’ and require minimal technical resources, other than micro:bits for some of the lessons . The campaign offer includes teacher support through webinars and direct-to-the-classroom videos so that you can upskill and be one step ahead of your learners.
You do not need experience in robotics - this is the role of our engineering professionals who have shared their work and insights with us. We’ve brought this innovative world to you in a form that’s curriculum-aligned and mapped to the National Curriculum for England and the Scottish Curriculum for Excellence.
When asked, teachers explained they’d build Engineering Educates into curriculum time in a range of ways.
Which one suits you?
- used Design & Technology, science and computing time in the curriculum
- used the literacy talk tasks as daily openers
- integrated into STEM club enrichment time
- collapsed STEM days
Professor Lynne Bianchi, SEERIH Director, and founder of Engineering Educates explains:
“Our world continues to embrace new technologies every day, and all we need to do is look around to see where machines and robots have influenced how we live and work. We’re applying the learning we’ve had over so many years, together with teaching and learning approaches that will get young people minds-on and hands-on to design this new campaign. I am so please we’re now at the stage to release it to teachers across the UK and beyond.
This unique collaboration with UK-RAS means we have to hand over 30 leading Universities working with us. This means we’re bringing into the classroom the most contemporary uses and developments in robots and the people who develop them. It’s time to jump in and be confident in knowing that we have done the heavy lifting to bring this inspirational new campaign to your classroom door!”
Inclusive, non-competitive and collaborative
There are no charges to take part - we simply ask you to sign into the website to access all the resources. The benefit of this is that we can communicate with you via regular e-newsletters about what’s new, what’s happening in other schools, events, outreach opportunities and much more.
We look forward to seeing the knock-on benefit to using this campaign, by inspiring our learners to apply their curriculum knowledge and skills to explore problems that are challenging real-world robotics engineers right now.
If you have questions or queries the team is here to help - email engineeringeducates@manchester.ac.uk
Timeline: 2024-2025
July - Initial communication to schools to launch curriculum links and campaign theme
Sept - New resource launch of two Challenge packs
Nov - 13th marks National Engineering Day 2024
Jan - Another 2 Challenge packs
March - British Science Week 2025