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Civil Engineering Club

Last year, ASCE Dallas started a Civil Engineering Club at Woodrow Wilson High School. Heading into the new school year, we are eager to deepen the impact of this program. The goal of this club is to get high school students interested and hooked on civil engineering.  Over the course of the semester, professionals from all branches of civil engineering will give presentations and lead group activities.  WWHS is a unique school in that they actually have an “Engineering Academy” where students can take classes in either civil or aerospace engineering.  In talking with the teacher at the school that leads the civil engineering classes, we have decided that it would work best if this “club” actually occurred during his civil engineering class.  This means that we would be a “substitute teacher” for the day while presenting on a specific branch of civil engineering and leading a class activity.

The club meetings are going to occur on Wednesdays during the last period “Civil Engineering” class from 3:15-4:05pm starting in late September.  If you or others in your office would be interested in presenting on your branch of civil engineering please let me know. Right now we currently have a need in the following sub-disciplines of civil engineering:

• Land Development
• Construction Engineering / General Contractor (possibly arrange a site visit/field trip for us)
• Environmental
• Geotechnical / Materials Testing (perhaps we could visit your lab as a field trip?)
• Surveying

You can break up the time however you feel (e.g. 20 minutes of talking, 20 minutes of activity), however I will say that you will make a bigger impact on the students and hold their attention longer if there is more “hands on” time.  As an example, for the structural engineering presentation last year we gave the students gum drops, marshmallows, and spaghetti sticks and challenged the students to build an “earthquake-proof” structure.  After the students finished building, we tested their creations by placing them in a pan of jello and shaking the pan to simulate an earthquake.

Contact Jonathan Brower ([email protected]) if you can help in any capacity or would like to recommend any willing and able professionals such as yourself!