Engineering Science Capital: co-creating resources to showcase diversity of engineering careers to 3-7 year olds and families

工程对英国经济非常重要，占GDP的26%。然而，在工程部门，存在严重的技能短缺和严重的性别不平衡。在英国，只有12%的工程师是女性，这是欧洲最低的比例。缺乏多样性对公司业绩和创新产生负面影响，并带来巨大的经济成本，最近的一份报告表明，充分利用女性的经济潜力将在2025年为全球年度GDP增加12万亿美元（数据来自https：//www.wes.org.uk/content/wesstatistics）。与性别和工程师/工程作为一种职业有关的陈规定型观念阻碍了年轻人，特别是女孩考虑和追求工程职业。工程界一直在努力与公众接触，并激励公众，试图吸引年轻人从事工程，但最近更新的Perkin报告指出，对职业发展的总体影响不大。许多举措针对年龄较大的儿童，尽管有大量证据支持尽早开始职业教育。研究发现，儿童开始在4岁时就形成职业抱负，在类似的年龄受到性别陈规定型观念的强烈影响。你认识谁也是一个关键因素;科学资本是衡量你与科学关系的一个指标（即你对科学的了解，你认识谁在科学领域工作等），科学资本低的儿童更有可能对科学职业有狭隘的看法，参加可以增加他们知识的活动的机会较少，例如工作经验，科学节等。皇家工程学院关于工程观念的一份报告证实，年轻人往往没有意识到工程领域机会的多样性，创造力、团队合作和解决问题等因素的重要性，以及工程学与日常生活的相关性。显然，需要做更多的工作来挑战陈规定型观念和发展技能，工程知识，以确保男女机会平等，科学资本，以增加未来工程劳动力的多样性，解决关键技能短缺问题。鉴于已证明和成功的干预措施的范围以及今后几年正在进行的活动，该项目将集中于早期干预措施，试验简单的方法并建立证据基础。具体来说，在这个项目中，我们的目标是建立与3-7岁的奥尔兹和他们的关键影响者（教师和家长/家庭）的科学/工程资本的方面，针对贫困地区的受众，并调查成功干预的过程和关键组成部分。了解过程，即为什么一项活动有效，将是本提案的一个关键重点，以生成证据来支持为该目标受众设计和提供进一步的工程和STEM干预措施。该项目包括共同创建资源，展示工程职业的范围和多样性。工程师将与电影制片人，插画家，故事书作家，音乐家，教师，公众参与专家和儿童一起创建一套资源，包括动手实验活动，用于各种环境。开发的材料将在不同的学校和幼儿园与儿童及其家庭进行试点，随后，将从最初交付中学到的知识推广到更广泛的受众，该项目的总体目标是最终吸引更多样化的年轻人考虑工程职业。

Engineering is hugely important to the UK economy, contributing 26% of GDP. However, within the engineering sector there is a severe skills shortage and a significant gender imbalance. In the UK only around 12% of engineers are women, which is the lowest proportion in Europe. Lack of diversity has a negative impact on company performance and innovation as well as a huge economic cost, with a recent report suggesting that harnessing the full economic potential of women would add twelve trillion dollars to global annual GDP in 2025 (data from https://www.wes.org.uk/content/wesstatistics). Stereotypes, both related to gender and engineers/engineering as a career, serve to dissuade young people, and especially girls, from considering, and pursuing, engineering careers. There has been a lot of effort by the engineering community to engage with, and inspire, the public, in an attempt to attract young people to engineering, but the recent updated Perkin report noted little overall impact on career uptake. Many initiatives are aimed at older children, though there is significant evidence to support starting careers education early. Research has found that children begin forming career aspirations as young as 4 and at a similar age are strongly influenced by gender stereotypes. Who you know is also a critical factor; science capital is a measure of your relationship with science (i.e. what you know about it, who you know who works in science etc) and children with low science capital are more likely to have narrow views of science careers and less opportunities to participate in activities which could enhance their knowledge, e.g. work experience, science festivals etc. A Royal Academy of Engineering report on perceptions of engineering confirmed that young people are often not aware of the diversity of opportunities within engineering, the importance of factors like creativity, team work and problem solving, and the relevance of engineering to everyday life.It is clear that is essential that more needs to be done to challenge stereotypes and develop skills/engineering knowledge to ensure equality of opportunity across gender and science capital to increase diversity in the future Engineering workforce and address the critical skills shortage. Given the range of proven and successful interventions and ongoing activity at later years this project will concentrate on early years interventions, trialling simple approaches and building an evidence base. Specifically, within this project we aim to build aspects of science/engineering capital with 3-7 year olds and their key influencers (teachers and parents/families), targeting audiences in areas of deprivation, and investigating the process and key components of successful interventions. Understanding the process, i.e. why an activity works, will be a key focus of this proposal generating evidence to support the design and delivery of further Engineering, and STEM, interventions for this target audience. The project comprises co-creation of resources, showcasing the range and diversity of engineering careers. Engineers will work together with film makers, illustrators, storybook writers, musicians, teachers, public engagement specialists and children to create sets of resources, including hands-on experimental activities, for use in a variety of settings. The developed materials will be piloted in different schools and nurseries, with children and their families, and subsequently, incorporating learning from initial delivery, rolled out to reach a wider audience.The overall aim of the project is to ultimately attract a more diverse range of young people to consider engineering careers.