Should you ever find yourself in the unlikely circumstance of having to choose between me administering medication or waiting for a paramedic, my advice would be to wait. One of the things I discovered about myself on my recent visit to the Science Museum is that my fine motor skills leave much to be desired. Trying out the role of lab technician for size, I either over-filled the solution or under-filled it. As Dirty Harry was wont to say, a man’s got to know his limitations.

The other thing I discovered is that there are many more types of technician than had ever occurred to me. Indeed, one of the key benefits teachers and pupils are likely to draw from this exhibition is a better grasp of the breath-taking array of ‘invisible careers’ that are out there.

I was pleasantly surprised to bump into a group of primary school children on my visit. Their teacher told me she’d brought them to fire up their curiosity and widen their interests, and from what I saw they were definitely very engaged.

However, the exhibition is clearly aimed at secondary school pupils, and for obvious reasons. By year 9, they will be weighing up their GCSE options. By year 11, they will be thinking about work or higher education.

Building on this time of important choices, the first thing you are presented with when you enter the exhibition is an opportunity to reflect on the areas that interest you. Your answers lead to a list of options to explore.

And there are many. Perhaps I’ve led a sheltered life, but the word ‘technician’ basically conjures up images of a science lab or a roomful of servers. It is, of course, much wider than that, describing any job for which particular technical skills are required.

I was very impressed with the high-tech simulation

The field of health alone encompasses pharmacy technicians, clinical coders, healthcare lab technicians and simulation technicians among many others. If you’re not sure what all of these are, fret not. Large-screen videos throughout the exhibition feature people in these (and other) technical fields explaining what they do.

Moreover, these very technicians will often be the ones running the ‘Meet an employee’ workshops available to school groups. These take place on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10:30, 12:00 and 13:30, can accommodate 60 pupils at a time and must be booked in advance. Be warned, though: what kind of technician will run your workshop is pot luck, depending on availability. Your workshop may even be hosted by one of the Science Museum’s volunteer technicians instead of the professionals in the videos.

A variety of free workshops is also on offer. One is run by a structural technician and asks pupils to build a tower in such a way that it collapses, and then discuss why it was unable to remain standing. The sessions include providing the pupils with (sterilised) headphones and a Q & A session at the end.

For people like me who don’t want to risk killing anyone, there are other roles too, such as matching the sound and visual effects on a film and welding parts of a roller coaster. I tried the latter, and was very impressed with the high-tech, haptic feedback of the simulation.

Such attention to detail is hardly surprising given that the Science Museum collaborated with Marvel Studios, the NHS, National Grid and the University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre to devise the exhibits.

The simulations are almost uniformly excellent. Each guides you through a series of steps and invites you to try again if, like me, you’re likely to be a hazard in real life. I experienced a glitch in the pharmacy technician simulation, which referred to a worksheet before it actually appeared, but perhaps this kind of nit-picking should be left to a veterinary technician.

A timely contribution at a time of renewed focus on careers education, the Science Museum have even done some of the work of mapping the exhibition to the national curriculum on their website. Fun, informative and (very important in my case) safe too. I highly recommend the trip.

This review originally appeared in Schools Week magazine.