Year 8 & 9 Girls Inspired by Airbus Trip for International Women in Engineering Day
A group of our Year 8 and 9 girls recently had the incredible opportunity to visit Airbus in Stevenage as part of International Women in Engineering Day celebrations. The visit aimed to raise aspirations, challenge gender stereotypes and highlight the exciting career opportunities available for women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Maths).
During the day, students explored the fascinating Mars Rover Yard, where they got to see a replica of the Mars surface and examine prototypes of the ExoMars Rosalind Franklin Rover. Developed by the European Space Agency, this rover is designed to search for signs of past or present life on Mars and is set to take part in the next mission to the Red Planet.
The girls also took part in a series of hands-on workshops, including one focused on drones and their many capabilities. They explored real-world challenges such as tackling space debris, before being set their own mission: design a drone. The girls could choose a number of scenarios from tracking polar bears, to mountain rescue, to monitoring the rainforest.
The creativity and teamwork on display were outstanding, with one group particularly impressing the team. Their innovative idea to design a drone that not only monitored illegal logging but also released seeds into sparse areas of the rainforest sparked real interest. One of the Raytheon employers even commented that in all his years running this workshop, he had never heard that idea before — a fantastic achievement for our students!
The day concluded with the chance to meet and talk to Airbus engineers and STEM ambassadors. Hearing directly from women working in engineering and technology helped to inspire the girls and show them that the STEM industry is full of exciting possibilities for everyone, regardless of gender.
We are proud of the enthusiasm, confidence, and creativity our students showed throughout the day. Hopefully, this experience has sparked new ambitions and shown that the next generation of women engineers and scientists could well be sitting in our classrooms right now.
