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Libraries

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.

STEPS are here to support you along your journey to planning your activity. This page contains all the information that you need to get involved with STEPS Engineers Week 2023.

How does STEPS support my STEPS Engineers Week Activities?

STEPS aims to:

STEPS supports libraries by:

  • Providing libraries with hands on engineering activities to carry out with primary and secondary school children.

How libraries can get involved in STEPS Engineers Week:

  1. Carry out an engineering themed activity with children during STEPS Engineers Week.
  2. Register your activity on our official STEPS Engineers Week 2023 registration page.
  3. Promote your activity using our Digital Promotional Pack. Share photos, videos and updates of your plans, your engineering activities in progress, and photos and highlights of your activities. 
  4. Record your impact. Encourage evaluation and improvement of the week using the STEPS Engineers Week surveys and providing feedback on your experience as an organiser. 

Plan your activity

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.

These activities will be available to download for free from the end of January 2023 for all registered participants. 

STEPS Engineers Week suggested resources and activities

STEM Stories Reading List

The STEPS team has selected a list of books about engineering and STEM.

Book Display or Poster

Using the STEM Stories Reading List, create a book display.

Display a STEPS Engineers Week Reading List Poster on your notice board, window etc.

Print Activity Sheet to Take Away

STEPS have a number of printable activity sheets that libraries can print for children to carry out in the library, or to take away and complete at home. Visit the Primary Section or Secondary Section of the Website for printable resources.

Hex Allen's Guide to Defeating Monsters

The Engineers Ireland STEPS team have paired up with Jasmine Florentine, author & project illustrator of Hex Allen and the Clanksmiths, to share Hex Allen's Guide to Defeating Monsters! Join Hex and her friends as they use science and engineering to get out of a bunch of scrapes, and make some fantastic gadgets in this special and exciting activity. Download now.

Jasmine has created a video demonstration especially for STEPS Engineers Week! Watch now on the Engineers Ireland YouTube Channel.

The Most Magnificent Thing - by Ashley Spires

A picture book about an unnamed girl and her very best friend, who happens to be a dog. The girl has an idea to make the most MAGNIFICENT thing!

STEPS will provide exclusive access to the short animated movie about the book for libraries to show. Please register your interest to receive this in the lead up to STEPS Engineers Week, available exclusively to registered libraries. Register your interest here.

Download an accompanying activity sheet here

Colouring Competition

STEPS have a number of printable colouring sheets and spotter sheets available to download, both in English and Irish. Run a colouring competition for children in your library.

STEPS
Library webinar recording 1
Amanda Quigley and Caroline McLoughlin recorded an informative webinar on how they plan for STEPS Engineers Week.
STEPS
Library webinar recording 2
An information session from 2022 which contains relevant information for 2023.

Register your activity

Register your participation to access free supports listed above. 

Register your activity for these five key benefits:

  • Receive access to the Certificate of Participation to share with your students
  • Receive access an exclusive STEPS Engineers Week 2023 Digital Promotional Pack to help promote your activities
  • Potential to be included in regional press releases and photographer
  • Increase the pool of skilled workers in Ireland by combining efforts with industry nationwide, raising the profile of engineering opportunities available among young people
  • Help STEPS to carry out an impact analysis that we can use to help influence policy, decision making and apply for funding.

Promote your activity

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:

  • Twitter @engineerireland
  • Facebook @engineersireland
  • LinkedIn @EngineersIreland

Registered activity organisers will receive a Digital Promotional Pack to help promote your activities. The pack includes:

Posters Text for suggested social media posts
Logos (Various Colours) Email signature
Instagram, Twitter & LinkedIn graphics Logo as Gaeilge

 

Digital promotional packs will be made available to registered organisers in the lead up to STEPS Engineers Week 2023.

Record your impact

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.

Please share the survey and have your students/attendees share their STEPS Engineers Week experience. Taking part in the survey lets participants know what they would like to see for future STEPS programmes. The survey is confidential and takes less than five minutes to complete.