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SALT LAKE CITY -- Thousands of elementary school students from the Salt Lake Valley will play the role of engineer this week. The University of Utah's College of Engineering hopes to persuade more kids to become engineers by teaching kids real-world experiments with straw and clay.
"What we want them to think about is: ‘I can go really like biology, and I could be a biomedical engineer.' ‘I can really like chemistry, and instead of being a chemist I could also become a chemical engineer,'" explained Deidre Shoenfeld, program coordinator for the University of Utah's 14th annual Elementary Engineering Week.
Schoenfeld says there's a shortage of students studying engineering and taking an interest in math and science. So the university is reaching out to more kids -- especially girls, minorities, and first-generation college-bound students.
"The more they can take now, the more we can say -- as we increase the need and need more people to deal with really large problems in the world that require a good technology background -- these students are equipped to take on that challenge," Schoenfeld said.
Monday, the group of fifth- and sixth-graders were playing with straw and clay.
"(I learned) how to launch catapults, how to build them and stuff," said Victor Lujan.
"The smoother something is, the faster it'll go under water," Zak Bishop said.
But this isn't all just fun and games. Educators say it's very important to teach these kids early just how crucial engineering is to everything -- including infrastructure, medical devices, even entertainment.
"When we first got up here today, they were introduced to the Pixar short films. So, everything from animation, computer design, has engineering skills in it," said Misty James, sixth-grade teacher at Millcreek Elementary School.
James says if kids can learn to get excited about math and science early, it will open up career opportunities.
"I think that would be cool to build a building, or to make something new that could be a big hit in the world," student Madeline Young said.
Elementary Engineering Week runs through Thursday at the University of Utah.
Email: niyamba@ksl.com
