Local Birmingham theatre in education company teams up with University of Birmingham engineers to use drama to encourage Birmingham school children into science careers.
One of Birmingham's leading Theatre in Education companies, The Play House, have partnered up with a team of Bio mechanical and medical engineers from the University of Birmingham to create a brand-new project called Daughters of Invention. The project is funded by the Royal Academy of Engineering Ingenious awards scheme, for projects that engage the public with engineers and engineering.
Daughters of Invention will tell the story of one of Birmingham’s real-life engineers and inventors, Sarah Guppy. During the 18th century, Sarah was a female engineering pioneer whose designs and ideas inspired Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s world-famous Bristol Clifton Suspension Bridge.
Using Sarah’s story, and the true stories of University of Birmingham PhD Engineers, the project hopes to encourage pupils from four Birmingham primary schools to find out more and aspire to careers in the traditionally male industry.
The children will work with engineers from University of Birmingham in a series of workshops to test their different ideas and solutions to the problem presented by fictional characters from across history.
The whole project with culminate with a sharing on the 28th February at the University of Birmingham where the school pupils will help the PHD Engineering students to share their own personal stories of curiosity and passion for their work.
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Photo Call:
Thursday 28th February
University of Birmingham
Contact:
Mathilde Petford
The Play House
bookings@theplayhouse.org.uk
Notes for editors
Ingenious is an awards scheme, run by the Royal Academy of Engineering, for projects that engage the public with engineers and engineering. The scheme is supported by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.
The Ingenious awards programme aims to:
- Inspire creative public engagement with engineering projects
- Motivate engineers to share their stories, passion and expertise with wider audiences and develop their communication and engagement skills
- Raise awareness of the diversity, nature and impact of engineering amongst people of all ages and backgrounds
- Provide opportunities for engineers to engage with members of the public from groups currently underrepresented in engineering
Ingenious has funded over 200 projects to date, providing opportunities for over 5,000 engineers to take part in public engagement activities, to gain skills in communication and to bring engineering to the very centre of society.