The Age Of Egnineers is a programme for promoting engineering professions and technical sciences.
In 2008, the Institute of Aviation in collaboration with several dozen partners started the national programme addressed to almost 3 million gymnasium and high school students, parents and science teachers. The programme for promoting engineering professions and technical sciences, “The Age of Engineers“, is run under the patronage of Vice Premier and Economy Minister Waldemar Pawlak, Science and Higher Education Minister Barbara Kudrycka and National Education Minister Katarzyna Hall.
The programme aims at raising the visibility and social status of the engineering profession in order to increase the number of young people who consciously choose to study engineering. At the same time, the programme encourages interest in studying exact sciences. To achieve these objectives a countrywide network of partners is being built, comprising innovative enterprises, scientific establishments, schools, associ-ations, and publishers. The list of supporting partners is not closed.
There is no finish date set for the activities conducted under “The Age of Engineers“ programme. It is envisaged that the programme could be running for the next dozen or so years. The detailed action plan was developed until the year 2014. The programme embraces over 13 000 gymnasiums and high schools throughout Poland.
As its central premise, the programme has the intention to create a community focused on issues relating to technical sciences and engineering professions. Participation in the programme is voluntary and free of charge. The main goal is to stimulate and satisfy intellectual needs through entertainment and play, as well as generate maximum commitment to creating, developing and running the programme in all its aspects.
A community portal the first of its kind in Europe, has been opened as part of the programme. Besides enabling promotion of the programme, the portal functions as a meeting place and a forum for sharing information, and encourages learning through play.
An important element of the programme is offering teachers of mathematics, physics, computer science and technical sciences opportunities to use tested teaching methods and participate in workshops and seminars, so that they could improve their qualifications. For this very reason, Golden Lodge of Technical Sciences was brought to life. In collaboration with innovative companies, Golden Lodge of Technical Sciences will be emphasizing the importance of application oriented research.
Outside the community portal, a series of integrated promotion and education activities, involving students, parents and teachers, are organized. These include:
- Engineering, scientific, and educational picnics
- Countrywide competitions for gymnasium and high school students
- “Check what you know“ school visits to innovative companies
- Open science labs
- Open doors at technical universities
- Meetings with parents
- Strategic games for schools
- Workshops for teachers
- Science conferences
- Street events
- Varied forms of the internet, outdoor, press, radio and TV promotion.
The entire programme relies on the maximum involvement of students, parents and teachers in its creation and development.
