Engineering has some of the greatest and most interesting methods of encouraging and promoting science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education and careers to the next generation.
Many great STEM initiatives already exist in various forms, such as science and engineering events aimed at kids, mobile prototyping and maker labs that visit schools and communities and making professional software available for student use, to name only a few examples.
Many STEM initiatives are aimed at budding engineers – usually students in high school, though increasingly these programs focus on younger students at the middle school level – and Cornell University’s new Annual Build program has the same focus.
The core of the program involves recent engineering graduates contacting teachers at their former high school and offering to arrange a day to come in and lead a class in a maker-themed lesson.
The Annual Build aims to take advantage of the current popularity of the “Maker movement” among these school-age youths and teens and try and get them interested in pursuing STEM education and careers.
The Maker movement excels in making STEM subjects appear more accessible to younger students, allowing them to participate in projects using simple components and materials, or one of the many student kits for building electronics, programming devices, robotics, 3D printing or others.
Encouraging STEM by making it more accessible is also what makes newly graduated engineering students an ideal choice for promoting STEM education. Many engineering grads are closer in age to the high school students they want to reach and can remember how daunting the STEM fields can seem when a young student is first introduced to these topics.
Cornell shared the story of one of their engineering grads, named Alice Meng, who was involved in the Annual Build’s first foray.
Meng returned to her former high school in Lewisburg, PA to lead a maker-inspired activity on the last day of school. Meng led a group of 27 students to build and test small remote-controlled, 2-wheel cars.
The students used littleBits kits, containing small electronic building blocks that snap together with magnets, requiring no soldering, wiring or programming. These kits can be used to build remote control cars, like those of Meng’s group, as well as internet-enabled devices or other electronic inventions one can imagine.
Meng’s student group explored the possibilities of the kits and their imaginations with enthusiasm. After building their cars, they developed their own ideas and built rotating lamps, a 4-wheel-drive RC car and a so-called “mischief machine” for pulling pranks.
“It was inspiring to see how enthusiastic the students were about building things and to see them trying out how all the different bits worked on their own,” said Meng.
Another event was held in Lansing, NY and hosted by Cornell’s director of mechanical engineering studies in system engineering, David Schneider. Students at this event built remote controlled cars as well and then raced them around a cardboard racetrack, timing the results.
The Annual Build through Cornell is just one more option for engineers looking to help foster interest in STEM in the next generation. Cornell hopes the program will continue to do well and become a widespread and established tradition with the school.
This would also be an easy program for other universities to adopt, as it only requires some enthusiastic engineering graduates, a group of students interested in STEM and some fun, engaging ideas.
For more information, visit the Cornell Engineering website.