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APPENDIX C
Selected Outreach Programs
.,
The survey/questionnaire revealed a wide range of outreach activities through-
out the engineering community. These activities take many forms but can mostly
be characterized as local cooperation and support for national programs. All of
the current outreach activities underway are important, and the sponsoring orga-
nizations obviously have invested a great deal of time, interest, energy, and money
in them. In some cases, these organizations provide financial support that makes
programs possible; in other cases, their staff members volunteer to work with
young people on projects or visit their classrooms. The level of outreach and the
commitment to young people and local communities are impressive.
Some current programs are especially noteworthy because they involve
interesting or unusual collaborations or because they represent innovative prac-
tices not apparent in most other programs. These programs are described below.
TV Production. WGBH public television in Boston has two projects on the
drawing board: ( 1 ) the development of engineering segments for its daily program
"Zoom"; and (2) the design of a new children's show focused on engineering
called "E Games." WGBH also aired "Building Big," an educational series on
engineering achievement produced by Larry Klein for WGBH. American Society
of Civil Engineers (ASCE) worked closely with WGBH on "Building Big" and
"Zoom." Klein, president of Production Group, Inc., also produced a program on
the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings based on ASCE and Federal
Emergency Management Agency research, which aired on "Nova" in April 2002.
In network television, FIRST Robotics is working with Disney on a made-
for-TV movie starring Noah Wyle of "E.R." as a teacher who supervises a FIRST
team at an inner-city school in California.
64
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APPENDIX C
65
Outreach to Women and Minority Students. With funding from an NSF grant,
the Miami Museum of Science collaborated with the Miami-Dade County Public
School System and SECME, the Southeastern Consortium for Minorities in Engi-
neering, a national organization established in 1975 by the engineering deans of
seven southeastern universities, working to increase the pool of minority students
prepared to enter and complete college programs in math, engineering, and
science. Girls in 52 middle schools were provided access to resources, which
included teacher training and parent involvement.
"Math Is Power" is a humorous, sophisticated print and radio public service
campaign that conveys the message to American students, particularly students
from minority communities, that they can and should pursue quality, college-
track math and science classes in middle and high school and that parents should
demand these classes for their children because the skills will prepare them for a
variety of career options. The campaign is sponsored by the National Action
Council for Minorities in Engineering.
The focus of a program by Adobe Corporation is basic education in under-
served communities. Adobe has established long-term relationships with local
schools; the company provides funds for college scholarships and teacher train-
ing, donates software, and provides tutors. An annual program brings high school
students to Adobe's offices where they learn from employees how to interview
for a job and what skills are required for employment. An "Invitation-Only"
event is an annual reception for women and minority students in local colleges.
Adobe's outreach programs convey consistent messages: stay in school, go to
college, and consider pursuing a career in technology.
Nine universities in and around Detroit have formed a partnership with the
metropolitan school system to bring hundreds of middle and high school students,
most of them minority students, to campuses on a year-round basis to be coached
in the math, science, and computer skills they will need to be accepted and succeed
in college. The Detroit area business community provides funding to pay the
college faculty members for their teaching time. The University of Michigan,
Dearborn, is one of the engineering schools that participates in this Detroit Area
Public Schools Advanced Placement (DAPSAP) Program.
EXCITE (Exploring Interests in Technology and Engineering), sponsored by
IBM, is a summer camp for sixth and seventh grade girls with 20 locations around
the world. The goal of the program is to encourage interest in math and science.
The "3M Science, Training Encouragement Program (STEP)" for 30 years has
brought minority high school students to 3M for science classes.
Women in Engineering Program (WEP) and Multicultural Engineering
Program (MEP) are two formal programs at the University of Colorado, Boulder,
that focus on recruiting and retaining women and minority students. The pro-
grams have set numerical goals for measuring success: their goal is to graduate
30 percent women and 12 percent underrepresented minority students of color by
2007.
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RAISING PUBLIC AWARENESS OF ENGINEERING
The only women's school with an engineering department, Smith College,
which has a rigorous academic program, focuses on the social purpose of engi-
neering.
One hundred Intel Computer Clubhouses in underserved communities around
the world will enable youths ages 8 to 18 to develop computer fluency. The pro-
gram is being established in partnership with the Boston Museum of Science and
the MIT Media Lab.
Women in Engineering Programs and Advocates Network (WEPAN) has
provided training to 175 universities focused on outreach, recruitment, and
retention of women in engineering. WEPAN developed the curriculum and has
conducted 2-1/2 day seminars over the past nine years to train universities to
implement and evaluate recruitment and retention programs.
Advertising. ExxonMobil writes and places advertorials in The New York Times
and The Washington Post to reach opinion leaders on issues related to science and
technology. An advertorial entitled "In Praise of Engineering," which ran last
year around E-Week, received a great deal of positive feedback from the engi-
neering community.
Teacher Training. The Boston Museum of Science sponsors training for teachers
in math and science. The Exploratorium Museum's Teacher Institute in San
Francisco works with new middle and high school math, science, and physics
teachers to increase retention rates.
Teach to the Future, a three-year program sponsored by Intel in partnership
with Microsoft, will train 400,000 teachers in 20 countries to use technology and
professional software in the classroom. 3M has a 25-year-old project, "3M
Teachers Working in Science and Technology (TWIST)," which provides six-
week summer internships for math and science teachers.
The engineering school at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, offers a
graduate-level class called "Engineering for Teachers" for middle and high school
math, science, and technology teachers to teach them about the engineering pro-
fession and to give them the tools to introduce hands-on engineering design con-
cepts into their curricula. The engineering and education schools at Tufts are
working to improve training for math teachers in a program they hope will be a
model for other universities.
Schools and Coursework. The Henry Ford Academy, a charter school devel-
oped by the Ford Motor Company with the Wayne County public school system,
is located on the grounds of the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.
Entrance is by lottery, and the diverse student body, 70 percent minority, has
needs ranging from special education to remedial learning to exceptional skills.
Another program, sponsored by The Ford Academy of Manufacturing Science,
has developed a pre-college curriculum used in 70 public schools nationwide, as
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APPENDIX C
.,
67
well as in South Africa and India. The curriculum uses real-world settings for
applied math and science instruction and employment-oriented courses on team-
work and communications. Courses are taught as electives along with the core
offerings of each school system.
The GM Technical Academy was created by General Motors with the Oak-
land County Public Schools. During the school year, 20 high school juniors and
seniors spend each morning at their own schools and each afternoon at GM; each
year the students design, engineer, and build a full-size electrical vehicle (parts
are fabricated by GM to the students' blueprints). Students, who range from
degree-bound students interested in engineering to non-degree-bound students
who want to pursue automobile-related vocational training, are also offered six-
week paid internships at GM.
Space Day is an annual event that promotes math, science, and technology
education by posing space-based problems for fourth, fifth, and sixth grade
students to solve. This Lockheed-Martin program, which involves NASA, chal-
lenges students to work together in the classroom to solve design challenges for
living and working in space. The day-long program also features a live, inter-
active Webcast (via the Internet or satellite) that allows students to interview
astronauts, scientists, and space experts.
"Preparing Future Workforce" is a collaborative effort between 3M, the Saint
Paul public schools, and the Saint Paul Area Chamber of Commerce that brings
the concept of career pathways and how to pursue them into area high schools.
The Summer Program for Engineering, Math, and Computer Science, co-
sponsored by the University of Vermont (UVM) and the Governor's Institutes of
Vermont, brings high school sophomores and juniors from all over the country to
campus. About 10 percent of the students who participate enter UVM as fresh-
men.
Mentoring. The ACE Mentor Program encourages students to pursue careers in
architecture, construction, and engineering. Founded by Thornton-Tomasetti En-
gineering, the program, which is supported by sponsors, including ASCE, relies
on more than a dozen large firms to provide mentors to work with students.
MentorNet, a Silicon Valley-based nonprofit program, is an email and
Internet network that links women students in engineering and science with pro-
fessionals in these fields.
Competitions. The annual National Science Bowl, a math and science competi-
tion among teams of high school students from around the country, is sponsored
by the U.S. Department of Energy. Teams compete at the regional level, and the
finalists come to Washington, D.C., for the national competition. The Idaho
National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) works with teams
in the state of Idaho through the INEEL Scholastic Tournament which tries to get
every high school in Idaho to field a team. Every year, 80 to 85 teams are fielded
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1
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RAISING PUBLIC AWARENESS OF ENGINEERING
in Idaho, more than in any other state; state championship matches are televised
on Idaho public television. Three Idaho teams then advance to the national com-
petition in Washington, D.C., giving students a chance to meet federal scientists
and mathematicians.
MATHCOUNTS, a program sponsored by the National Society of Profes-
sional Engineers, focuses on honing math skills at the middle school level. The
program offers a platform for organizations that go the extra step. The engineering
school at the University of Vermont (UVM), for example, has made
MATHCOUNTS part of its outreach program; in 2001 all four Vermont "mathletes"
placed in the top 100 students for the first time. UVM also collaborates with the
business community in Vermont in its annual Design TASC (Technology and
Science Connection) Competition for high school students. The competition is
sponsored by the Ford Motor Company and businesses in Vermont and
surrounding states, including local TV and radio stations, which broadcast com-
mercials and announcements at no cost to UVM.
Public Service Campaigns. The National Association of Manufacturers joined
with the U.S. Department of Commerce in 2001 to co-sponsor a program to
address the shortage of manufacturing workers in the United States; the program
is funded by $1 million in in-kind donations. Information packets focusing on
math and science education will be mailed to every middle school in the country.
Televised Public Service Announcements, which will feature Mia Hamm, the
Backstreet Boys, and a NASCAR driver, will focus on the manufactured equip-
ment that enables them to play soccer, play music, and drive race cars.
Public Lecture Series. Harvey Mudd College sponsors the Dr. Bruce J. Nelson
'74 Distinguished Speaker Series, which bring noted speakers to campus to inform
the general public about scientific subjects; the series is popular with the public
and press.
Public Policy Development. Kansas State University (KSU) has instituted a
program to inform public policy makers about the contributions of engineers to
society and the costs to the university of providing engineering education and
conducting research. Its message to state legislators focuses on the contributions
of engineers to the standard of living and economy of Kansas, and the significant
contributions of KSU to the state's well-being. The object of the program is to
influence state legislators to consider these contributions in funding decisions.
Education Standards. Massachusetts is the first state to have revised the K-12
math standards as math and engineering standards, introducing engineering and
problem-solving concepts into the classroom in all grades. Many other states are
watching closely with an eye to following suit. The engineering school at Tufts
University has worked closely with the Massachusetts Department of Education,
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APPENDIX C
69
the Boston Museum of Science, and other institutions on this initiative. An NSF
grant will provide funding for training current teachers to teach to the new
standards.
Classroom and Teacher Support. An NSF grant enabled North Carolina State
University to send nine engineering students to work with two elementary schools
and one middle school as science, math, and technology resources and co-
teachers. In Massachusetts, the Engineering in Mass Collaborative, a partnership
of businesses, colleges and universities, K-12 teachers and schools, and state
agencies, seeks out and promotes best practices in increasing awareness of engi-
neering and science careers and improving math, engineering, science, and tech-
nology education for K-16 students. The engineering school at University of
Massachusetts, Lowell, which founded the collaborative, directs the program.
National Engineers Week, sponsored by the engineering societies and indus-
try on a rotating basis, brings engineers into classrooms at all levels, introducing
many children to the world of engineering for the first time.
The Jason Program, founded by Bob Ballard, the scientist who located the
Titanic, organizes an annual expedition and enables students in centralized loca-
tions in the United States and Canada to interact with the explorers. The Idaho
National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) has taken on a
leadership role in the state on this program, enabling students to travel to the
centralized locations and facilitating the link-up, thus providing access for stu-
dents in this largely rural state.
Saturday Morning Physics at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, which
began in 1980, brings 300 high school students to Fermi 10 times a year. Students
attend lectures on physics topics and then break up into discussion groups with
physicists and post-doctoral researchers. QuarkNet, also at Fermi, is a multi-year
teacher outreach program that has reached 720 high school physics teachers to
date. The program brings teachers to the laboratory for summer research appoint-
ments; the teachers then provide professional development for other teachers
through Web-based follow-on programs.
Grassroots Outreach Programs. The largest number of respondents engaged in
outreach activities provide local, hands-on support for national programs. The
national program provides the overall structure and relies on the participating
organizations to provide expertise, enthusiasm, and time. National hands-on pro-
grams that were mentioned by respondents are listed below:
ACE Mentor Program
AICHE (American Institute of Chemical Engineers) kits for ages 8 to 10 (de-
signed to help Girl Scouts earn two engineering badges, but also appropriate
for classroom instruction)
ASCE/West Point Online Bridge Design
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RAISING PUBLIC AWARENESS OF ENGINEERING
Boy Scouts of America (Engineer Explorer posts, open to girls and boys, co-
sponsored by the Learning for Life Program)
Girl Scouts USA (relationships with AICtIE, Society for Women Engineers)
SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) Collegiate Design Competitions
Formula SAE
SAE MiniBaja
SAE Aero Design
SAE Clean Snowmobile
SAE's A World in Motion (grades 4 to 6)
International Bridge Competition
Jason Foundation for Education
FIRST Lego League/FIRST Junior Robotics
US FIRST Robotics
National Engineers Week
Representative terms from entire chapter:
public schools
