Two Decades of Discovering Engineering

This year marks the 20th year for the National Engineers Week Discover E outreach program. This is one of many programs which the National Engineers Week Foundation (www.eweek.org) has to offer engineers and educators to teach young people about the engineering field. Others include Future City and Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day.

Discover E promotes the theme Engineers Make a World of Difference to K-12 students with lots of activities that are archived online. Included are activities from “Zoom Into Engineering”, grade-level activities from 1990-2002, 2010 activities and archived activities from 2006-2008. Most of the activities state the grade level of the target audience, list materials needed and the science and engineering behind the activity.

According to the eweek.org website, “The Future City Competition is a national competition in the United States that focuses on improving student's math, engineering and science skills. It contains two levels: individual state and regional competitions and the National Finals for the winners of these previous contests. The goal is to design a futuristic city and discuss its important elements of a city: urban planning, zoning, transportation, energy, economy, environment and education. Team members represent their ideas and proposals in several ways:

• Essay about the yearly theme.
• Abstract discussing their city's services and ideas.
• Model to show a physical representation of one section of their city.
• Computer Design using Sim City software.
• Presentation to describe their city to the judges on the day of the competition.