The Institution and the National Curriculum

As part of the Institution and Educational Trust's educational initiatives to link structural engineering into the national curriculum, the Trust and parting agencies have produced teaching material for teachers in schools. The projects below will help students understand that the basics they learn at school in Maths, Science and Design & Technology lead onto practical applications in engineering.

The Educational Trust thanks Bartlett Kendall Associates, University of Cambridge, Jacobs Babtie and the Arup Group for their work on for the following projects.

As one of the UK's professional Institutions, we want to play our part in providing youngsters with information about our profession so that young people can make informed study and career choices and that is why Allan Mann of Jacobs Babtie produced this presentation on 'Building the London Eye'.

The London Eye has been a tremendous success and is now one of the world's best known structures currently being copied in Singapore, Beijing and Berlin. It has provoked great interest both architecturally and technically and thus provides a wonderful inspiration to young people of the challenges and rewards of engineering, a discipline vital to our national well being.

Although the Eye's design looks complicated, an examination will show that many of the technical demands are perfectly understandable from topics taught in schools within mathematics and physics at both GCSE and 'A' level. Consequently, we have selected the slides and added annotations below each to try and show the practical relevance of subjects taught on the curriculum. One slide towards the end highlights the differing disciplines that were required to create the Eye and hence highlight the career paths pupils may choose to adopt depending on their particular interests.

A copy of the presentation can be downloaded here; otherwise a copy can be ordered by contacting Sonia Waigo.

Engineering For Everyone is a scheme run in Devon that takes university engineering students into local primary schools to teach the children about structural engineering. The lesson format is in three sections; firstly a 20 minute presentation is given asking the children for their ideas about what engineers do and why the engineer's role in society is important. The presentation concludes introducing the second part of the lesson, the design-and-build a bridge task. The children are split into groups of around 6 and given an engineering student to guide them with the design and construction of their bridge to span 50cm between tables.

The children have only two sheets of A1 card, sellotape, string and their own creativity for resources and around an hour and a half to complete the structure. The lesson concludes with a competition that marks the bridges for aesthetics, general design and load-carrying capacity. All children are awarded with prizes and certificates. For more information about the scheme please contact Will.Emeny@arup.com.

Click here for more information

A research project was commissioned by the Institution of Structural Engineers Educational Trust in 2004 to investigate how to promote Structural Engineering in schools. Bartlett Kendall Associates was appointed to undertake the project and explored the National Curriculum to identify areas within it that can be linked with Structural Engineering.

As a result of this project an activity has been produced which is based in Design & Technology around the Key Stage 3 Programme of Study but with strong cross-curricula links to Science and Maths. It includes a requirement to undertake simple mathematical analysis of a structure.

The activity has been prepared for Year 9 students and demonstrates the relevance of Maths and Science theory to a real-life problem and shows how the combination of Maths, Science and D&T can be considered as Structural Engineering.

The activity has been successfully trialled in schools and is now being offered to schools nationally. It can be readily used by teachers with minimal preparation. Details of the project can be downloaded here.

To complement the study by Bartlett Kendall on the best way to make students aware of what engineering entails, final year undergraduates at the University of Cambridge, have produced modules for use by teachers on the topics of 'Stadium Roof Design', 'Bridge Design' and 'Tall Buildings'. The material is aimed at students in the final year of their GCSE courses, just before they have to take the decision about which subjects they will pursue to A level or beyond.

Each activity is supported by a Teacher's PowerPoint presentation, Guidance Notes for Teachers and Student Worksheets. They are designed for the use by teachers without the need for further input, but might be even more effective if arrangements for a member from the Institution can be made for a school visit demonstration.

Click here for further information and how to access the teaching packs.