STEPS Engineers Week, run by the Engineers Ireland STEPS programme, gives children the opportunity to discover engineering, facilitated by their teachers, parents and local community. STEPS Engineers Week 2023 will take place from Saturday, 4 - Friday, 10 March 2023.
To support engineers in this endeavour, the STEPS Team has collated a list of items to help engineers and companies with any advance planning. These are listed below.
Support organisers to plan and carry out engineering activities.
Help empower teachers and organisers to communicate about engineering.
Providing engineering organisations with guides, tools, and training videos.
Providing organisers with hands on engineering activities.
STEPS Engineers Week activities should show off what engineering is to young people. This is the only requirement from STEPS – otherwise the sky is the limit!
Do you need any activity idea? STEPS has collated a list of activities that you might like to carry out. These can be found below. If you have another engineering activity in mind, that’s great! Please do feel free to go ahead with your own activity. You can carry out the same activity each year, you are under no obligation from STEPS to come up with something new each year.
The Engineers Ireland STEPS programme is calling on engineers, engineering organisations and role models to adopt a local school to provide real-world opportunities for students to engage with Ireland’s engineering community. Your visit may be in-school, in-house, or online. STEPS urges you to host at least one activity, such as a classroom visit.
Tips for finding a school to adopt:
Due to ongoing Covid-19 restrictions, it is best to check in with the school to see the most up to date visitor policies, and then work with the school on what activities are possible.
Carry out an engineering themed activity with children during STEPS Engineers Week using the below supports provided by the STEPS team.
Read more about the supports below, which will be available from Autumn 2022 following a short STEPS Engineers Week participation registration page.
The STEPS team are thrilled to partner with As Creatives on this support for engineers and engineering organisations. The Adopt a School Toolkit: A Guide for Engineers support organisers of in-house, in-school, and digital visits. All the information you need to get organising a visit is conveniently located in one easy document. Download the Supporting Papers and Templates for template emails, papers etc. Available from Autumn 2022 for registered organisers.
Learn more via the below video.
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Use our customisable powerpoint slides for your school presentations. add in information about yourself, your organisation, any interesting projects that you would like to highlight. tip: make sure to look at the notes section of the powerpoint for speaking prompts and explanations. Available from Autumn 2022 for registered organisers.
To support organisers, STEPS has teamed up with Mark Langtry, Head of Science and Sport at Explorium, on two short training videos to help you adapt your presentation style to an online visit for children. Available from Autumn 2022 for registered organisers.
Promotional pack, logos and social media templates
Register your activity to receive access an exclusive STEPS Engineers Week 2023 Digital Promotional Pack to help promote your activities. Includes STEPS Engineers Week logos, template social media posts, template graphics etc. Available from Autumn 2022 for registered organisers.
The Engineers Ireland STEPS Team will host webinars and training related to STEPS Engineers Week. Subscribe to our mailing list to hear when these bookings go live.
Register your participation in STEPS Engineers Week to access free supports for engineering professionals.
STEPS encourages you to help your adopted school carry out more than one engineering hands on activity for STEPS Engineers Week. STEPS has curated a number of activity ideas for both primary and secondary level. Registered organisers will be granted access to the school activities upon registration.
Furthermore, register your activity for these five key benefits:
Registrations will open in Autumn 2022.
Now is the time to shout about your STEPS Engineers Week Activity and communicate your success! Share an update of the activity with your network. Write a blog post for your website, create a video, update social media, circulate an internal email - all to showcase your involvement in STEPS Engineers Week.
Make sure to tag us and use our special hashtag #STEPSEngineersWeek and tag us:
Registered activity organisers will receive a Digital Promotional Pack to help promote your activities. The pack includes:
As an activity organiser it is critical for you and your students to evaluate your STEPS Engineers Week experiences, so we can analyse the positive impact of all your hard work. You can do this via our online evaluation or via a printable evaluation sheet.
STEPS will email this to all registered activity organisers in the lead up to STEPS Engineers Week 2023.