SEEKing Excitement for STEM
By Siobhan Leftwich
Students head to the SEEK Academy at San Diego State University in July.
Nearly 1,200 parents and other adult caretakers attended the mandatory Parent Orientations for SEEK programs in three cities this year.
When most kids think of summer camp, they envision wood cabins, nights around the campfire and days spent crafting and canoeing. So, when Dana Hentz’s parents first told her she’d be attending an engineering camp called SEEK, she balked. “It just didn’t sound like fun,” she says.
But her mother, Francine, persisted. “We saw a great opportunity for Dana to learn about math, science and engineering.”
“And by the end of the third week,” recalls Dana’s father, Larry, “she didn’t want it to end.”
Now 12, Dana has been attending NSBE’s Summer Engineering Experience for Kids (SEEK) program in Washington, D.C., for the past three years.
“I have worked on so many great engineering projects and made so many friends,” says Dana, who has a strong aptitude for science. “And my math grades have improved, too.”
This is the kind of feedback Carl B. Mack likes to hear. Since 2005, when he took his post as executive director of the National Society of Black Engineers, Mack has made it his mission to expand NSBE’s Pre-College Initiative.
“I knew that if we wanted to grow the organization seriously, we would need to start a science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) pipeline early — in elementary school,” he recalls. “Last year, less than 3,300 black engineers graduated from college,” he laments. “And every year, more than 10,000 black students declare engineering (as their) major. We want to change those statistics. Our goal is to put 100,000 kids into the STEM pipeline.”
Calvin Phelps, NSBE’s national chair, agrees.
“Engineers aren’t created in college or high school,” he says. “They’re developed at an early age.” He notes that until the third grade, blacks perform the same in math and science as white students. “SEEK is literally inserting itself into the process,” he says. “We have the ability to motivate and encourage students. That’s what we’re going to need to increase the number of black engineers.”
High Demand
Since 2007, SEEK has been providing a free, three-week, engineering day camp experience for students across the country, thanks to funding from sponsors such as Battelle, Chevron Corporation, The Clorox Company, GE, Intel Corporation, Motorola, Inc., San Diego Gas & Electric Company and the U.S. Coast Guard, among others. This past summer, students attended SEEK programs in four cities across the country: Washington, D.C.; Columbus, Ohio; and San Diego and Oakland, Calif.
The students in all four cities received instruction and guidance from “SEEK mentors”: 183 NSBE collegiate members from across the U.S. — most of them engineering majors. Thanks to the curriculum provided by one of NSBE’s SEEK partners, SAE International (the Society of Automotive Engineers), students work on projects that teach them about the laws of physics, motion, flight and electronics.
“SEEK campers are involved in hands-on activity,” says Mack. “They design a jet car, record their data, such as the distance and speed. They also learn engineering concepts. The first week they start building stuff. By the end of the three weeks, they understand exactly what different kinds of engineers do.”
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