Working within the engineering sector, it is important that we encourage interest and inspire the next generation into STEM industries. Throughout May and June 2024, our M8 Woodside Viaducts team worked with Cowcaddens Nursery to deliver four STEM sessions to seven of their older children who are preparing to start school in August. 

Our sessions began with two of our colleagues, Project Manager Daniel Stirling and Principal Geotechnical Engineer Charlotte Peacock, visiting the nursery. During their visit, Daniel and Charlotte spoke with the children about their roles and how they contribute to the local Woodside Viaducts project. They taught the children about different bridge types and utilised these learnings to help the pupils design their own bridges. Afterwards, the children worked to build their structures outside with Charlotte and Daniel’s assistance. 

We returned to Cowcaddens Nursery for week two, with Daniel joining a second time alongside Civil Engineer Mog Poovin. During this visit, Daniel and Mog shared some insight into the Woodside project and explored the design of bridges across Scotland, while the children tried on PPE. The morning finished with our engineers assisting the children in building structures using their magnetic shapes. 

On our third week, Senior Civil Engineer Kelly McNee and Graduate Quantity Surveyor Brandyn Milne visited the nursery. The session began with Kelly and Brandyn explaining their job roles to the children, followed by a short presentation on the strength of different shapes and how they are used in bridges. Kelly and Brandyn then worked with the children to create these shapes with lollipop sticks to demonstrate their strengths and weaknesses in practice. Afterwards, the pair worked with the children to utilise these learnings to build truss bridges using lollipop sticks before they tested racing their toy cars across them. 

For our final week, Civil Engineer Rachel Cruickshank and Graduate Civil Engineer Azeezur Rehaman joined the children at the nursery. Rachel and Azeezur shared insight of their job roles before going on to explore how different bridges are built, specifically focusing on the strengthening of foundations. This led to their activity of building sandcastles. These sandcastles represented concrete bridge supports using twigs to create strength demonstrating the implementation of a reinforcement cage. We then tested the success of the sandcastles by placing rocks on top to load them and comparing the difference in strength between the sandcastle with and without the added twigs.      

Following our final week at Cowcaddens Nursery, Engineering Degree Apprentice Michael Simson and Assistant Quantity Surveyor Lewis Kennedy rewarded the children for their hard work by gifting them road safety toys. The pupils were ecstatic with this delivery and desperate to play with their new toys right away.  

To complete our STEM outreach at Cowcaddens, Project Manager Daniel Stirling and Media and Communications Officer Alisha McKinlay took the pupils on a tour around the external perimeter of the Woodside Viaducts site, showing them the view of the works from both underpasses and Burnside Street. This was a great conclusion of Amey’s time with the Nursery as it allowed the children to see what they had been taught over the past four weeks in action. 

The children really enjoyed our visits, and it was great to see them engaged with our team, equipping them with the knowledge and skills to try implementing these concepts themselves. Headteacher Claire Tummon said: 

“Over the last few weeks Alisha McKinlay along with other employees have come along to work with our children here at Cowcaddens Day Nursery.  

The learning experiences offered to the children have been fantastic. Our children have truly been engaged and it has captured our children’s learning/interests.  

The staff who also took part have shared their professional feedback and we discussed the massive impact this has had on our learners over the past 4 weeks in regard to Block Play, STEM experiences, and problem-solving thinking.”