April 2006
Introduce A Girl To Engineering Day – Engineers to the Rescue!The 5th Annual Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day brought 80 participants to North Campus on February 18, 2006. Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day is a featured activity of National Engineers Week (E-Week) held every year during February. National E-Week is sponsored by major companies including Bechtel, Boeing, DuPont, General Electric, Intel and IBM. Microsoft and Camp Caen supported the campus event by supplying prizes and souvenirs. This year’s theme, “Engineers to the Rescue: Preventing and Responding To Disaster” was intentionally selected by the WISE office in response to recent national and international events including Hurricane Katrina and the Asian tsunami. Participants, including middle school students, high school students, parents, educators, engineering students and faculty came together for hours of tours and hands-on activities. Students toured the wind tunnel and structures lab, constructed dome shelters of newspaper with biomedical engineering graduate student Alisha Diggs and designed bridges with civil engineering graduate students Benjamin Pitchford and Jereme Kent. Exciting tours of our two wind tunnels were led by aerospace engineering students Corinne Gatos and Krystal Bishop. Engineering students Grace Biggs, Kimberly Lockhart and Jereme Kent fielded questions during lunch. Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences student Amanda Graor’s presentation on tornados and Civil Engineering professor James Wight’s talk helped students understand the important and complex work of engineers. Researcher Raymond Swartz even opened his Intelligent Structural Technology (LIST) laboratory space to the students. Additional faculty, staff and students including Professor Steve Wright, Judy Yu, Deborah Laird, Angelica Amable and James Todd, enthusiastically supported the event. Although two activities were cut short by a fire alarm, the students regrouped to hear more from the presenters. Two dozen students from the Lansing area Community Volunteers Network attended the event. The group was delighted to learn that one presenter was from their neighborhood and even knew some of their teachers. The participants enjoyed engaging
in the problem-solving and design activities that engineers encounter
every day. Further, they understood and appreciated the role engineers
play in preventing and responding to disasters. Now, some can even imagine
themselves in such roles. The 2007 National Engineers Week is scheduled
for February 18-24th, 2007. For more information visit the E-Week site
at http://www.eweek.org/. |
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