Inspiring the next generation of female engineers and designers

In March of this year, DCA was invited to teach a Design and Technology (DT) lesson to Year 4 pupils at Warwick Preparatory School. Two of our colleagues, Maartje Pel, a designer and Charlotte Smith, an engineer, delivered a tailored design workshop to an incredibly receptive audience of 9-year-old girls.

Engaging with children as young as this may seem premature, but it we believe that it can ‘plant the seed’ for an open-minded approach to career choices in later life. While these children might not decide on their career paths until much later, their frames of reference are already beginning to build. In particular, engaging with female engineering and design role models could open the eyes of young girls to a world of new opportunities, helping guide their future academic subject choices.

The children’s inquisitive nature and enthusiasm were infectious, and their unexpected questions revealed a strong drive to understand how things work and how they can be created. When put to the test in a chair design exercise, they produced a myriad of ingenious solutions, demonstrating how product design appeals to a wide range of people and showing that creative problem-solving is an innate quality that simply needs a little nurturing to flourish. Who knows? Some of these girls may become part of the next generation of creative engineers and designers who will be crucial in addressing the challenges the world will face in the near future.