Skip to main content Skip to navigation

'The Imagineerium' - a STEAM initiative to develop engineering creatively through the arts

Jo Trowsdale, Principal Teaching Fellow, Centre for Education Studies

Funder: Arts Connect West Midlands, the Arts Council and Coventry, Solihull and Warwickshire Partnership

Attracting young people to study and pursue careers in STEM subjects such as engineering is a challenge recognised by technologically advanced countries. The paucity of women in engineering is part of this problem. Yet interest in studying the sciences at primary age is often enjoyed (Archer et al 2013). The arts are popular subjects and widely recognised as instrumental in educational and social change – reflected in recent suggestions of STEAM (Culture, Media and Sport Committee 2013).

The Imagineerium pilot project involved 75, nine and ten year olds from three Coventry schools, sited in some of the most deprived areas of the city, commissioned to work alongside professional Imagineers (artists, designers and engineers) to imagine, design and make models for kinetic performance structures. Three models were selected for full build and performance at the Coventry Festival of Imagineering August 9th 2014. The project has grown out of a five year arts and engineering partnership between Imagineer Productions and Imagineer Technologies, consolidated through the Olympic Godiva Awakes project.

Research, funded by Arts Connect West Midlands, the Arts Council and Coventry, Solihull and Warwickshire Partnership was undertaken into this newly emerging creative, arts and engineering process, here called imagineering. The pilot project sought to explore the appeal of an arts-rich, authentic and embodied approach (physical theatre, imaginative constructs and hands-on activity in a professional environment) to stimulate curiosity and interest in engineering and engage girls and boys of primary school age in thinking imaginatively and like engineers. It chimes with the recommendations of the recently published report ‘Thinking like an engineer’ which recognises a ‘signature’ pedagogy for engineering and advances the growth of dualistic habits of mind which span creativity and logic (Royal Academy of Engineering / Centre for Real World Learning, May 2014). Characteristics of signature pedagogies introduced by artists overlap in several respects (Thompson et al 2012). The project design also reflected recommendations of the ASPIRES project (Kings College London 2013).

This pilot is a first step in a bigger initiative which proposes artists, engineers and young people learn from and inspire each other, exchanging knowledge, practice and sensibilities so that existing and future practitioners become more hybrid in their practices and thinking, able to imagineer and innovate.

Resources & Links

Imagineerium Pilot Report July 2014 (PDF Document)