1.  The Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust (IGMT) is an independent educational charity operating ten separate Museums within the Ironbridge Gorge World Heritage Site. It attracts around 300,000 visitors a year of whom 60,000 are students in organised groups. There are over half a million site visits between the 10 different museums.

  2.  In August 2002 IGMT opened Enginuity, a hands-on Design & Technology Centre. The project formed part of a major Heritage Lottery Funded package to restore and bring back into use a group of derelict buildings associated with the historic Coalbrookdale Ironworks. This completed a programme stretching back over thirty years to rescue, restore and interpret a site associated with the birth of the Industrial Revolution.

  3.  It was against this background that the concept was developed of using the buildings to house an interactive design & technology centre focusing on the fundamental process that made the Ironbridge Gorge so famous—the turning of materials and ideas into useful things. Not only does the Centre embody the industrial history of the area, but it has given the Museum a new contemporary relevance and meaning.

  4.  Enginuity is unique in that it was designed from the outset around key aspects of the design and technology curriculum. Although aimed at a whole range of ages and abilities, from pre-school children through to adults with specialist knowledge, its main audience was perceived as family groups and schools—Foundation Stage and Key Stages 1, 2 and 3. This led to extensive consultation with local and national design and technology specialists, which is reflected in the layout, choice of exhibits, and use of language.

  5.  As a learning experience, Enginuity makes design and technology exciting, fun, and relevant to everyday life. It is innovative in the way in which it involves visitors in the subject, striking a balance between focused tasks and free experimentation, so that they discover for themselves the processes of designing and making. Direct links between the usefulness of both old and new technology are brought alive using the unique Scan-It system—an infrared device for scanning objects. This allows visitors to access imaginative multi-media interpretations of products they select from the displays around them. Visitors of all ages are able to explore and interact with the exhibition, culminating in design activities that stimulate a genuine response to the challenges of designing and making useful products.

  6.  Enginuity's education programme has grown rapidly in popularity. At its simplest level, the Centre can be used as a source of inspiration for children to design and make products, and apply their understanding of core subjects such as Mathematics, Science and Technology. Schools are provided with detailed resources before their visit with suggestions for key ideas within each zone, and group activities and challenges for the main exhibits. By booking workshops, schools can gain more in-depth knowledge of certain areas of the National Curriculum for design and technology, and inspire pupils to greater levels of creativity and innovation.

  7.  The three hour design and technology workshops are very different in style and duration to those on offer at similar venues. Workshops are offered all year round and focus on the DfES/QCA schemes of work for design and technology, ICT and Science, adapted versions of which are written to suit the activities at Enginuity. The Centre was developed as a learning resource for design and technology, therefore it was seen as essential that workshops linked directly to the interactive displays, using them as a source for investigative and evaluative activities. The ideas and principles discovered are then put into practice in the main element of the workshop—an assignment to design, make and test a product. Knowledge, understanding, and skills learnt during the visit can then be taken back to the classroom and developed into a more detailed design and make activity to complete the relevant unit of work.

  8.  The learning experience of a visit to Enginuity can be enhanced by accessing resources provided by the National Design and Technology Education Centre (NDTEC). This was opened in the summer of 2003, in the facilities adjacent to Enginuity—including a large conference room, ICT Facilities and a resource base. The Centre is also the home to the D&T Association library, which includes a comprehensive set of primary design and technology publications and materials, and which is available for use by visiting teachers. The National Centre provides a prestigeous venue and focal point for everyone involved in design and technology and STEM related subjects, hosting national and regional continuing professional development (CPD) courses, conferences, exhibitions and demonstrations of the latest design and technology equipment and materials.

  9.  Building on the success of Enginuity and its role as the National Design and Technology Education Centre, this April Ironbridge became the first Museum in the United Kingdom to host a SETPOINT. These are sub regional "points" for actively delivering and promoting the STEM (Science, Engineering, Technology and Maths) agenda. They are funded and co-ordinated by SETNET (The Science, Engineering, Technology and Maths Network) and are hosted by partnership organisations. They have assigned areas so that they can address specific local and regional needs. The small Enginuity based team are responsible for Shropshire and Telford and Wrekin. The Primary Function of a SETPOINT is:

  10.  "To ensure that all young people, teachers, schools and colleges in their area have easy access to an extensive and balanced portfolio of high quality STEM curriculum enhancement and enrichment opportunities."

  11.  The strategy behind the Governments STEM agenda is to:

—  Provide employers with the skills they need in the workforce.

—  Help to maintain the UK's global competitiveness.

—  Make the UK a world leader in science based research and development.

  12.  Science centres and venues like Enginuity are the vital public interface with this agenda. They have been developed around the key aim of enriching and enhancing the STEM curriculums and encouraging STEM literacy of the British public. They therefore already play a major role in delivering the government's agenda and represent a major investment in the long term development of the UK economy, enthusing and engaging future generations of scientists and technologists.

  13.  To succeed in their mission, these centres not only need sources of funding for infrastructural renewal but equally investment in a cadre of staff with the requisite knowledge, communication skills and enthusiasm. These two issues are where they face their greatest challenges.

RENEWAL

  14.  All hands-on based exhibitions have a hard life and there is a constant need to refresh and renew. Contractor built exhibits can cost upwards of £60,000. Individual exhibits can often be funded through imaginative grant body/industry partnerships but funding large gallery refurbishment projects is more difficult.

  15.  Recent funding packages targeting Science centres have included the 2004 Millennium Commission Rediscover Fund. Enginuity made a good application but was unlucky in this instance. However, one of the issues associated with initiatives such as this is that the fixed timescale results in a substantial proportion of the science centre sector chasing a relatively small number of experienced exhibit builders at the same time. This, coupled with the pressure to complete work during the quiet winter months, means that centres have a very limited choice of contractors and not necessarily those best suited for the project. This is especially a problem for small to medium sized contracts. Future funding initiatives should recognise this issue with perhaps a clearer range of project funding levels staggered over longer timescales.

STAFFING

  16.  Science centres are only as good as their staff. The delivery of quality workshops and teaching activities requires the training and retention of skilled and knowledgeable staff. The ideal presenter or enabler level staff member is one who is educated to degree-level in a STEM subject with excellent communication skills—this is exactly the type of person who might also be attracted to a career in main-stream education. The commercial realities of operating a centre, however, mean pay levels for such staff are generally at or not far above the minimum wage. This makes recruiting, developing and retaining high quality staff a constant battle. This is especially an issue for centres like Enginuity not located within major conurbations. The role and benefit of such staff in delivery of the national STEM agenda should be recognised in through funding, for example through the creation of a training bursary scheme. This could be used to support in-service postgraduate training in teaching/heritage management which could be used to make a selection of posts more attractive.

AUDIENCE

  17.  It has been our experience, shared with many other venues, that whilst the primary schools market for science and technology centres is strong, it is far more difficult to attract a substantial secondary market. Secondary schools simply find it far more difficult to find space on the timetable to bring groups out to visit, groups who would reap huge benefit from what the sector could offer with its capacity to engage, inspire and enthuse. Any developments in the secondary school curriculum which would make it easier for pupils to visit science and technology centres such as Enginuity would be warmly welcomed.

June 2007