Day 15 - Hundreds and Thousands (Child Edition)

Today we were delivering workshops at a local public primary school. Upon arrival, we still weren’t sure how many children or the ages of the children that would be receiving the workshops, and had just come prepared for any eventuality. It was very lucky that we had overpacked workshop supplies as the teachers informed us we would be given 450 children split up into three rooms. Since there was 9 of us, we split into groups of three to take each group. I went with Kirstin and Linda to take the Year 5s (10/11 year olds), and we were surprised by the amount that the kids knew about STEM already, chanting to us the words of the acronym in unison when we asked if they knew what it stood for.

We decided to deliver our trusty ol’ straw towers workshop, which we were slightly worried about controlling due to the number of children in the room. However, they were very receptive and engaged, and came up with very creative structures that we’re also very stable. The kids then had lots of interesting technical questions about the different engineering disciplines, civil engineering, and how the towers they made applied to real life buildings. The other FemEng girls also said that they got lots of engagement and innovative ideas during their workshops with the other students.

Once we were done after just over an hour with all the groups, we got some feedback forms from the teachers, and were given tea and sausages in the staff room before we left. With the 450 kids today, the total number of students that we have reached with the workshops is sitting at approximately 870(!!!), with another one and a half weeks left in Nairobi.

The UoN girls then wanted to take us to the street food market Klabu where some of us tried some popular Kenyan street food. Afterwards, we headed home to get some work done and watch Derry Girls.

- Ruby