At Tessa International School, we are always eager to inspire young minds through meaningful and engaging learning experiences. Each year, we celebrate Engineers Week—a nationwide initiative dedicated to fostering a love for engineering and innovation in students of all ages.

Engineers Week 2025, themed “Design Your Future,” highlights the power of engineering in shaping a better world and encourages youth to explore limitless possibilities.

The STEM teacher shows the inner structure of a clock to Grade 1 students at Tessa International School.

We foster learners’ curiosity, creativity, and problem-solving through STEM education.

What Engineers Week is

Founded in 1951 by the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE), Engineers Week aims to raise public awareness about the contributions of engineers to quality of life and motivates the next generation of innovators.

Held annually in February, it is a time for schools and organizations across the country to engage students in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) through hands-on learning and mentorship, showing how engineering influences everything from smartphones to sustainable cities. For children, it’s a chance to ask, “What if?”—and start finding answers actively.

Celebrating Engineers Week at Tessa International School

According to Discover Engineering, 74% of educators say their students do not have many opportunities to meet an engineer or technical professional. At Tessa International School, we integrate various learning opportunities to make engineering concepts come to life.

Meeting with Future Engineers

What does it take to become an engineer? What tools do engineers use? Our primary students had an online meeting with college students currently majoring in engineering, expanding their understanding of and interest in engineering and technology careers.

Exploring Branches of Engineering

Students also interacted with real engineers from diverse fields—our wonderful parent speakers! Through age-appropriate activities, they explored how creativity and knowledge can solve real-world problems, aligning with the goal of the International Baccalaureate (IB) Primary Years Programme (PYP) framework: fostering meaningful and lasting real-world connections.

Mechanical Engineering: Disassembling a clock to understand how hour and minute relationships are maintained.
Bioengineering: Using microscopes to make their own observations of biological structures.
Cybersecurity Engineering: Learning about data protection through child-friendly visualizations.

Hands-On Highlight: Civil Engineering Bridge Challenge

Bridges, buildings, and roads—civil engineers design and construct the structures that shape our daily lives.

After learning about truss bridges, our students became city planners, transforming their imagination into miniature bridges built with straws and tape. Collaborating with their peers, they explored physics, teamwork, and perseverance—embracing failures as valuable learning opportunities!

STEM Education at Tessa International School

While Engineers Week is a highlight, STEM is an integral part of our curriculum as one of our ‘Specials’ classes, designed to develop well-rounded learners.

Through hands-on projects and investigations, this transdisciplinary class not only enhances students’ literacy in math, science, and technology but also nurtures curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking—essential qualities for those ready to make a positive impact.

Did you know? Bilingual students enjoy unique advantages in STEM learning.

FAQs

Q: What is the theme of Engineers Week 2025?

The 2025 Engineers Week theme, “Design Your Future,” is both a celebration of past and present technological achievements and a call for a brighter, more diverse future with collective ingenuity.

Q: How can parents support their child’s interest in Engineering?

Parents are essential partners in children’s learning journey. Even without an engineering background, you can introduce your child to these concepts in a fun way. For example,

Encourage curiosity by providing STEM-related books, puzzles, and building kits;
Always ask open-ended questions about how things work;
Explore engineering projects together.

Learn more about how parents can support their children in learning here.

Q: How does Tessa support students’ STEM learning?

STEM is one of the “Specials” classes embedded in our rigorous curriculum to promote students’ transdisciplinary learning, preparing them for a future of interconnected knowledge and skills. Through hands-on projects, students develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills by exploring scientific concepts, experimenting with technology, and applying engineering principles to real-world challenges.

Are you ready to discover Hoboken’s leading international private school?

Contact Tessa International School to learn more!

It’s no secret that language and literacy are the cornerstones to education. The more communicatively proficient your child becomes, the greater their overall educational experience becomes. This is because knowing how to communicate effectively is the basis for all learning subjects.

It goes without saying then, that by increasing your child’s language and literacy skills – say by adding a second language – you’re increasing their cognitive ability overall. In fact, more and more studies have discovered that bilingual children show signs of significantly higher comprehension across all academic subjects than their monolingual counterparts.

The Bilingual Advantage

According to NPR.org, “People who speak two languages often outperform monolinguals on general measures of executive function.” In layman’s terms, bilingual children are adept at deciding when to use each language, giving them a higher level of focus and cognitive abilities than children who speak one language.

Executive function control allows children to decipher speech – the basis for all learning – at a much greater level of authority. Since they are forced to consider each individual speaking circumstance to determine which language to use in each situation, bilingual children gain greater insight. This insight transpires into skills such as problem-solving, decoding, focus, and the ability to read social and environmental cues – all of which are prime skills for Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) learning.

STEM Learning

STEM learning has long been a focus of educators and professionals across the globe. Studying the areas which are responsible for things such as medical advancements, scientific discoveries, pharmaceutical breakthroughs and global structural components are clearly an important set of studies.

There is a reason these areas are so important – they are complex and critical to the advancement of civilization as a whole. With such a complex set of subjects, many parents ask if there is any way to give their child an advantage as they introduce STEM subjects to their little ones.

Bilingual Bonus

You may (or may not) be surprised to learn that bilingualism is a fantastic way to prepare your child for future STEM studies. Going back to communication and language as the core for all learning, it’s easy to understand how a child who is highly proficient in literacy and language studies would have a smoother time picking up complex STEM studies.

“Bilingual children are able to focus more intently on the topics at hand and avoid distractions from academic pursuits. They are also able to demonstrate higher levels of cognitive flexibility, or the ability to change responses based on environment and circumstances,” reports TheAdvocate.org.

This ability to change responses and remain focused easily translates to better understanding things like scientific hypotheses and mathematical equations. The cognitive flexibility gives way to a deeper academic experience across all STEM studies in general.

Overall, the bilingual child is equipped with brain functions more powerful than others. This allows them to continue grasping more complex subjects and concepts throughout their lives. Their puzzle-solving, highly focused minds will pick up STEM subjects on a level high enough to sustain years of continued study and understanding.

Posts

Engineers Week at Tessa International School: Hands-On STEM Learning for Future Innovators