Promoting Engineering To K12 Students Through Spatially Challenging Making And Outreach Activities

Authors

Gavin DUFFY, Technological University Dublin, IrelandFollow
Marten WESTERHOF, Technological University Dublin, IrelandFollow
Deborah KEOGH, Technological University Dublin, IrelandFollow
Colm O'KANE, Technological University Dublin, IrelandFollow

Document Type

Conference Paper

Abstract

Outreach activities are an important and valuable approach to promoting engineering education and careers to young people. They provide an excellent way to show that engineering can be fun, challenging and rewarding. With some careful thinking, they can also be used to promote and develop spatial ability, a cognitive ability that is very important to engineering. The purpose of this workshop is to demonstrate examples of outreach activities that are the result of such careful thinking. Those who attend this workshop will be able to:

1. Explain why and how spatial ability is so important to success in engineering education
2. Summarise findings from research on gender and SES differences in spatial ability
3. List some key features of hands-on outreach activities that require spatial thinking
4. Find and explain a lesson plan or set of instructions to run a spatial outreach activity
5. Suggest ideas for how they could adopt spatial thinking into their outreach activities

DOI

https://doi.org/10.21427/01Y1-YF68

Recommended Citation

Duffy, G., Westerhoff, M., Keogh, D., & O'Kane, C. (2023). Promoting Engineering To K12 Students Through Spatially Challenging Making And Outreach Activities. European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI). DOI: 10.21427/01Y1-YF68

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.