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One of the most terrifying experiences of my life occurred in a modest school hall in Bath about eight months ago. It was not the sort of action situation to cause Spielberg to reach for the special effects, but it was a stomach-churning, heart-thumping, palm-moistening, and thoroughly memorable occasion.

In ten years I had accumulated sufficient confidence to talk in front of fellow engineers, architects, potential clients, even branches of the local Round Table, but never before had I been confronted with sixteen rows of expectant, upturned eight-year old faces. These charming youngsters were the cause of my stasis-inducing terror.

To eight-year old girls, the mechanics of the construction industry is probably more alien than little green men from Mars, and certainly less interesting, yet I was there to tell them about the engineering challenges of the Millennium Dome. The next 45 minutes stretched before me with the sort of blank infinity normally reserved for tracking shots of the USS Enterprise lost in space.

How on earth was I going to fill these minutes with interesting and accurate information to inform and educate these malleable minds? Fortunately, the sheer magnitude of the project came to my rescue. A series of stimulating facts and figures caught their imagination and provoked gasps of wonder at the gargantuan enormity of the project.

From this awakening of interest, I was able to go on and explain how the Dome was built, using a skipping rope and a hymn book to explain the principle of tensioned cables supporting a load. Drinking straws became invaluable props in explaining how ventilation ductwork operated, and a piece of actual roof fabric was handled with surprise and curiosity.

We had a quiz at the end (to see if they could remember the number of elephants required to encircle the Dome) and then invited questions. The questions ranged from the simplistic to the incisive: it was a nine-year old who asked if the very thin roof didn't let the heat leak out. (I resisted the temptation to launch into a discourse on U-values).

At the end of my allotted time, some of the schoolchildren were interviewed by the local media, and were asked what they'd learned about construction. Apart from the now surprising, "I didn't think a lady could be an engineer," they all seemed to have grasped the concept of the creative nature of design coupled with a need for mathematical calculations, and that any construction project was a collaborative effort involving many different people. One or two of them even suggested that they would consider the idea of a career in construction. Yes! The point of this anecdote is to illustrate the difficulty of conveying the attraction of a career in construction to the engineers, (and builders, architects and quantity surveyors for that matter) of the future. The decline in building services engineering courses can not be entirely blamed for the lack of good graduates on the market – the courses are declining because there seems to be limited interest in taking engineering subjects at further education.

They're just not glamorous enough to attract the high-flying school-leavers, who would much rather be off doing a ten-hour-a-week media studies course than starting a four-year masters course that will require application, lengthy coursework and serious revision come exam time, not to mention delaying a start to real earning for a year. So, in order to get people onto those remaining courses, they have to be inspired while still at school, and frankly, the younger, the better.

Given the GCSE system, where subjects are chosen comparatively early on, it's really the twelve-year olds that may be unwittingly closing the doors on an engineering career if not inspired with a lively desire to choose at least some science or design subjects.

In fact, it's rather easier to tackle school children of this age, before they've developed the blasé and worldly-wise disdain for any adult-presented new subject in the teenage years. And the great thing about construction is that it is so tangible. You can touch the things that we design and build; children are constantly surrounded by the fruits of our labours, seeing good and bad design every day, even if they have not yet developed the critical faculties to recognise it as such.

It’s the twelve-year olds that may be unwittingly closing the doors on an engineering career if not inspired with a lively desire to choose at least some science or design subjects

The concept of 'making' something is also a winner. What was the most popular episode of Blue Peter? The one where they constructed Tracy Island out of a squeezy bottle, a cereal box and a yard of sticky-backed plastic. Kids like to use their hands to fashion objects, and to show-off these objects to proud if bewildered parents. So in communicating with these youngsters, pictures and props are crucial. Pictures should preferably be of buildings under construction, or of buildings with people in them, rather than the glossy images preferred by architectural magazines. Props that are familiar make explanations accessible, while touching and handling things brings home the reality of the physical product much more immediately. Pointing to radiators and vent grilles in their own school -– things they've seen every day but never questioned what they do.

The other major selling point is the variety. Every construction project is unique in its own way. Sure, there are only so many ways you can fit 250 kVA of switchgear into a plantroom, but each plantroom will be designed slightly differently, each building the product of much human thought and effort, and human effort means uniformity is not a foregone conclusion.

Even an office block designed to be generic can never be entirely so as each site has its own specific climate considerations and adjacency issues. And no matter that you're designing your fifteenth swimming pool in two years, there's always something new to learn, some obscure piece of legislation to implement or some new product introduced into the market place.

Kids have very little grasp of what a forty-year working life may involve (and forty years without long summer holidays at that). Forty years is an unimaginably long time to a twelve-year old, and, when asked to think about it, they tend to shy away in blank-eyed horror. Conveying the notion that every day can be different is an important one.

Perhaps the hardest thing to convey is the enjoyment that can be derived from working with a varied team. Developing personal relationships with fellow team members as a project progresses, and the sense of satisfaction that comes with a collaborative success is rather an abstract concept to get over to these socially immature individuals who change best friends as regularly as favourite pop groups. Again, drawing a comparison with the stereotypical army of pinstriped, blank-eyed masses in the financial sector, pushing ever-increasing piles of paper around to no apparent purpose maybe unfair, but certainly makes the point.

In reality though, decisions on future careers tend to be shaped by happy accidents. What subjects is my best friend doing? Which college is closest to home? What University has a good rugby team? This doesn't need to be an obstacle – as long as we have a steady stream of bright, curious school leavers prepared to enter the industry with enthusiasm, they can find their niche as geotechnical engineers, or construction managers or lighting designers, or whatever. The important thing is to get them hooked in the first place.

Once hooked, I've no doubt they'll find a fascinating career: sometimes frustrating, occasionally exhilarating, but hardly ever dull.

Answers to questions
Q: How many pints of milk would it take to fill the Dome?
A: 3·8 billion.
Q: How many elephants would it take to encircle the Dome?
A: 204.
Q: How long would it take to fill the Dome with water if you turned it upside-down underneath Niagara Falls?
A: 111/2 minutes.