Articles

Engineers Week 2011

2011 E-Week/Discover Technology

By Alison Smith, Education Chair

Founded as “National Engineers Week” in 1951 by President Harry Truman and the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE), it is among the oldest of America's professional outreach efforts. This year the ASCE Dallas Branch celebrated the National Engineers Week 60^th Anniversary by sponsoring a booth at the Dallas Museum of Nature and Science to teach kids about civil engineering. The ASCE booth presented kids with hands-on activities and demonstrations to explore the world of civil engineering.

This year we also worked the weekend before E-Week during the Discover Technology weekend; the museum recorded approximately 3500 people in attendance. For the full week, we reached approximately 2500-3000 kids! The ASCE booth was set up with two activities for the kids, a paper bridge building activity and aluminum foil boat floating activity. For the bridge activity the students were tasked with shaping and folding one piece of paper, then placing it on top of two books and stacking pennies on their bridge until failure. For the “Float My Boat” activity, the students were given a 6” x 6” piece of aluminum foil, and then instructed to shape their foil piece into a boat and add passengers (pennies) to the boat until it sank. Both the students and volunteers had a great time building paper bridges and tin foil boats. The students learned valuable lessons about what civil engineers do and how we affect their everyday life. We have alot of event photos which will be loaded to our online photo album in the coming week.

Thanks to the motivation and inspiration that each volunteer showed to the students; it is very possible that we reached many future potential Civil Engineers.  The volunteers are truly what made this event possible and ASCE would like to thank each of them for their contributions during this year’s E-Week activities. Thank you to all of the volunteers, which included: Nasir Syed, Jim Montgomery, Renee Cousins, Shri Yamijala, David Falcon, Drew Olsen, Andy Veine, Ashley Kelly, Sabaa Ismail, Sadikshya Poudel, Kristin Green, Sean Merrell, Fatma Yasemin Cakir, Rick Pedraza, Ruth Antebi-Guten, Cissy Sylo, Faisal Syed, Khaison Wyandon, Rod Kelly, Darren Andrews, Wayne Bennett, Kevin Zhou, Jonathan Ard, Kayla Lorentz, Edra Brashear, Jeff Cohen, Craig Koudelka, Jesus Gonzalez, Napat Intharasombat, Monica Malone, Rosa Plesner, Jessica Simon, Wayne Barton, Seema Kalla, Audrey Demeter, Rachel Hayden, Daphne Johnson, Heidi Fischer, Odalys Johnson, Anu Kancherla, Jeff Hawkins, and Alison Smith. If I have left anyone out, please let me know – everyone did an awesome job!

“My favorite part was seeing the bright look on the kids’ faces when they designed and built their own paper bridge, and floated their own little boat, chocked full of pennies!”  - Jeff Hawkins, P.E., ASCE Dallas Branch President

“Since today’s students will fuel tomorrow’s ingenuity and economic prosperity, it is technology, engineering, and mathematics. Initiatives like National Engineers Week can spark a sense of wonder and excitement in these fields for our country’s young people.” - President Barack Obama