Engineering Summer Camps Promote STEM Education

Middle school students build a chemical volcano in the Explore Engineering I program.

Explore Engineering II students learn about electromagnetism.

Students practice solving problems by duct-taping each other to a wall.

At a local farm, Green Design students learn about organic farming.

Green Design students show off parts of their robotic recycling system.

Chemical and biomedical engineering students in the lab.

Assembling the photovoltaic panels for the solar boat.

Engineering Summer Academy students show off their finished boat.

In four different week-long summer camps, students in grades six through 12 learned about science and engineering from professors at the University of Arkansas. Middle and junior high school students got exposure to different STEM topics in Explore Engineering I, which took place June 20-24, and Explore Engineering II, which was July 11-15. High school students got hands-on experience with specific engineering disciplines in the Engineering Summer Academy during the week of July 24-30. During the first week of August, female students from Northwest Arkansas took part in Engineering Girl Camp.

This is the second year the College of Engineering has offered all of these summer programs. This year, the number of students taking part in Explore Engineering I and II and the Engineering Summer Academy more than doubled.

Eric Specking, assistant director of recruitment for the College of Engineering, explained that the camps are a great way to engage students who are interested in engineering. Specking pointed out that 89 percent of the high school seniors who attended the Engineering Summer Academy last year applied to the University of Arkansas as engineering majors, and he has seen evidence that many students decide to attend the University of Arkansas based on their experience in these summer camps.

Specking explained that the purpose of Explore Engineering I is to spark interest in science, technology, engineering and math. In this program, rising 6th and 7th graders programmed robots using the Lego Mindstorm system, made decorative garden stones out of cement, learned about logistics by making paper airplanes, created their own chemical slime and built an electromagnetic catapult.

Explore Engineering II is designed to give rising 8th and 9th graders a more in-depth experience with engineering topics. In this camp, students did many of the same projects, but they also took part in more complex activities, such as making iPod speakers out of Styrofoam cups, wires and magnets.

Participants in the Engineering Summer Academy chose one field of engineering to focus on, and they spent a week living on campus and working on engineering projects. Students in the Green Design sustainability camp took field trips to learn about urban planning and organic farming, designed and built a robotic recycling system and produced video podcasts about their experiences.

Students who chose to study chemical and biomedical engineering used reverse osmosis to make salt water drinkable, learned how to make biofuels from algae and investigated methods for clearing clogged arteries and time-releasing drugs in the body.

In the Solar Boat camp, students interested in electrical and mechanical engineering designed and built solar-powered boats, following the guidelines of Solar Splash, the international intercollegiate solar boat competition. At the end of the week, the students raced their boats at Lake Wedington.

At Engineering Girl Camp, 24 junior high students learned more about engineering through field trips and hands-on activities led by College of Engineering graduate student Christina Smith. The girls made polymer bouncy balls, mixed their own concrete, learned about electromagnets and constructed windmills.

Scholarships for Explore Engineering I and II are provided by the College of Engineering and the chemical, civil, and industrial engineering departments. Scholarships for Engineering Summer Academy were provided by Texas Instruments, the Arkansas Science and Technology Authority, the University of Arkansas Honors College, the Arkansas Academy of Chemical Engineers, the Ray C. Adam Endowed Chair in Chemical Engineering and the Women’s Giving Circle. The Arkansas Department of Career Education provided scholarships for Girl Camp, which is also supported by Project Lead the Way.

Specking explained that the summer camps are a joint effort among the recruitment office and all the departments at the College of Engineering. “We’re very appreciative of all the departments,” he said, “It’s important to have a range of topics to capture students’ interest, and the students had great things to say about all the different activities.”