About Engineering Superheroes: Engineering to Save the Planet
The project aimed to bring the important work of engineers in tackling the climate emergency to a wide audience and to inspire future generations to become engineers and/or understand better the work that engineers do.
The team delivered this by training engineers to lead climate-focused engineering workshops. Taking Bristol as their inspiration, they delivered 3 workshops for 35 students aged 15–18 from across the city. Critically, the cohort of young people participating comprised 86% BAME students, 66% Female students and 1 Non-binary student.
The workshops were structured around three core themes:
- Ecosystem Engineering: Rewilding & Biodiversity of Land & Sea
- Renewable Energy Engineering
- Active Travel & Public Realm Engineering
In addition to the youth workshops, they delivered a public talk titled ‘Switch: Leading the Clean Energy Transition’ to a mixed audience of 220 at Arnolfini, Bristol.
Impact on Students and Professionals
The workshops helped students gain insight and understanding of engineering in a way that inspired and engaged them through the topic of climate change. The sessions introduced engineers to the challenges of delivering a two-hour design workshop to young people, with the aim of illuminating how engineers’ work helps to minimise and mitigate against climate change.
The project recruited a range of engineers from different disciplines, including those from Stantec, Vattenfall, Buro Happold, and Campbell Reith. These participants were all early-career professionals. For the public talk, they recruited 3 engineers (2 female, 1 male). In all cases, the team trained and briefed the engineers on how to make their subject matter engaging and accessible.
Recruitment and Outreach Strategy
Students were recruited through contact with Bristol schools that serve socio-economically and ethnically diverse populations, utilising a database of contacts developed over several years. The team executed this through:
- Email campaigns to established school contacts.
- In-person school visits to speak to students directly during assemblies.
- On-site posters and targeted paid social media campaigns to reach specific city areas, parents, and young people.
- Newsletter outreach via Mailchimp to their existing subscriber base.
To generate a mixed audience for the public talks, they ran paid targeted social media campaigns across Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn. They designed a bespoke large-scale billboard for the Bristol harbourside and interviewed one of the female engineers regarding her work on the District Heat Network.
Advertising for the event reached 30,000 people via the Bristol 24/7 newsletter and 10,000 via their own. Finally, they provided free tickets to students in the Shape My City programme and allocated tickets to UWE Bristol students.
