Sam meets Engibear

Have you ever met Engibear?

Engibear is a bear engineer who gets things done with the help of his robot assistant, Bearbot.
There are two Engibear books, and I understand they are among the best selling books in the Engineers Australia bookstore.

My work friend Paul introduced me to the real Engibear. The real Engibear wrote the Engibear books with the help of an architect (Ben Johnston) and input from his children.

Sam loves reading about how Engibear went about building the bridge and his robot. There are lots of things to see on each page. The books are really well illustrated and very detailed - exactly the sort of thing I would have loved as a child.

I had the privilege of visiting Engibear in his cave with Sam the other day. I don't know who had more fun, me or Sam! I am visiting Engibear to work out how I can work with him to help kids get their teeth into STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths).

Let me show you a new way of telling a story. I found it this past week. See the link below. I need not many more words.

Read this story on Steller

Let me know how you find Steller. I love it because I can whip up a story slideshow including video (that looks good!) in less than 5 min, from my phone!

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WHY?
In my early ramblings you might have seen how Sir Ken Robinson's talk shaped my view of education. I really think that in Australia we have a real opportunity and necessity to be world leaders in education.

1. We have some huge hurdles to overcome - climate change, water scarcity just to name two. It's affecting our country now, not in 5, 10 years time. 
2. We can't keep digging or pumping resources out of the ground
3. Innovation and entrepreneurial work is harder to offshore.
4. Australia cannot and should not compete in the same way as other OECD countries in mass producing education, and sacrifice innovation in the process.
5. We can't keep blaming the politicians because we (actively or passively) put them there!
6. We need a more informed electorate, how do we do that?
7. In the coming years, we need not only well informed leaders but followers and leaders with the right values framework, otherwise you'll have very gifted people with little empathy or concern for those around them.

So, how do we keep the twinkle in our kids' eyes as they go through school?

As my children grow through the school systems,  I want to play a part in helping teachers and parents cultivate this next generation.
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