Unboxing Manufacturing: STEM for all at Our Lady’s Hospital School

Co-creation workshop with teachers from OLHS

Funded through Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) Discover Programme 2021

Context

Managing health conditions affects many aspects of a child and adolescent development such as motivation, social relationships and the ability to access the same educational resources and opportunities as their healthy peers.

Idea

Unboxing Manufacturing will facilitate and support meaningful learning experiences for children and adolescents whose illness and frequent hospitalisations have resulted in school absences. “Unboxing Manufacturing” is one of the projects to receive funding through the Science Foundation Ireland Discover Programme.

Aim

Irish Manufacturing Research (IMR), I-Form, the SFI Research Centre for Advanced Manufacturing and Confirm, the SFI Research Centre for Smart Manufacturing will work in collaboration with Our Lady’s Hospital School (OLHS) located in Children’s Health Ireland at Crumlin to co-design and co-create pedagogical workbooks and kits that provide their students with the opportunity to engage actively with Manufacturing and through that Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) themes and subjects. The aim of the project is to enrich the learning opportunities for the children who are missing school due to hospitalisation and distract them from the medical issues that brought them into the hospital through learning about manufacturing and product development.

Challenges

Ensure that the STEAM kits can be used with patients within the OLHS’s criteria and constraints concerning a safe environment for patients.
Develop high-interest, low-energy activities for the students.
Ensure the materials are accessible for all the students (i.e. children with special needs).