INWED is an annual event developed and coordinated by the Women’s Engineering Society (WES) to celebrate the achievements of women in engineering and inspire younger generations.

The core purpose of the day is to highlight female role models in the engineering industry so that the girls can make informed choices in the future in relation to their careers.

We typically celebrate the day in June by creating opportunities for the girls in Key Stage three to get actively engaged in engineering themed activities.

Here is a flavour of the types of activities we typically do.

Year 7 Girls

The girls carried out a series of challenges in order to survive a Zombie Apocalypse. In addition the girls also built a 20m bridge provided by ICE (The Institute of Civil Engineers). Thankyou to Fritha and Holly from Stantec and the Civil engineering students from Newcastle University for facilitating this event.

Here are some quotes from the day…

“I enjoyed today and really liked learning about how engineering can be applied to real life situations such as flooding, tsunamis or earthquakes”.

“My favourite activity was filtering ‘zombie infected’ water”.

“I have really enjoyed today and learnt that engineering isn’t just for men”.

Year 8 Girls

The girls’ visited Nissan in Sunderland to talk to female role models who work at Nissan. The contributors shared their career pathways and some very interesting facts about their jobs and training experiences. Thank you in particular to Heather and Ian at Nissan for facilitating the day.

The core purpose of the day is to highlight female role models in the engineering industry so that the girls can make informed choices in the future in relation to their careers.

Here are some quotes from the day…

“I enjoyed today because I never knew how many jobs go into making a car”.

“I enjoyed today and it showed me we girls can do it too!”.

“I really enjoyed today because I didn’t realise how many opportunities and options there are”.

“It was really empowering and inspiring to see so many women in a male dominated workforce”.

Useful links

https://www.allaboutcareers.com/careers/industry/engineering

Engineering myths and links to a range of branches of engineering

https://www.wes.org.uk/content/about-wes-who-we-are

The Women’s Engineering Society is a charity and a professional network of women engineers, scientists and technologists offering inspiration, support and professional development. Working in partnership, we support and inspire women to achieve as engineers, scientists and as leaders; we encourage the education of engineering; and we support companies with gender diversity and inclusion.

https://www.baesystems.com/en-uk/feature/celebrating-women-in-engineering

https://www.raeng.org.uk/education/this-is-engineering

The Royal Academy of Engineering.

https://www.engineeringuk.com/

Promoting the vital role of engineers and engineering to society.

https://www.theiet.org/

The institution of engineering and technology.