UNIONTOWN, Pa. -- “Engineering Lights up Our Lives” was the theme for E-Days, a Dec. 2 program that brought more than 100 gifted students from six local middle schools to Penn State Fayette, The Eberly Campus, for a day to think about science and careers. School districts participating this year included Laurel Highlands, Connellsville, Mount Pleasant, Elizabeth-Forward, Frazier and Kiski.
Penn State Fayette Associate Professor of Engineering David Meredith, coordinator of E-Days, explained that the program, now in its 15th year, originated as a way to encourage children to consider careers as engineers. At E-Days, middle-school students are exposed to science while touring group projects created by Penn State Fayette undergraduates, who are there explaining the concepts. Meredith said, “Our freshmen and juniors have to do some kind of design, so we decided years ago to let them design hands-on science for middle-school gifted kids — because we want these children to think about engineering as a great career choice.”
According to Meredith, this year’s theme, “Engineering Lights up Our Lives,” was all about wavelength, so students touring the exhibits got to see examples of how light is used in various fields of engineering. The displays featured laser uses and 3-D scanning, infrared uses such as a thermal imaging camera, distance measurement, gas chromatography and prisms, energy-efficient lighting, polarization, ultraviolet light applications, and fiber optics. Students also were exposed to the hair-raising Van der Graff generator and liquid nitrogen “just for giggles,” said Meredith.
Another Penn State Fayette instructor who was very involved with E-Days is Dan Schiffbauer. He said this year’s program featured additional activities, including tours of the campus, a scavenger hunt at the library, and a look into the area’s industrial past in the Coal & Coke Heritage Center, located at the Fayette campus. Some students took a field trip to Argon ST, a Fayette County manufacturing facility.
Schiffbauer is himself a former Penn State Fayette engineering student. Many of the projects for this year’s program were created by students in his E-Design 100 course. He has found that participating in E-Days benefits not only the middle-school students but also his first-year college students. “These are freshmen, so they are really not sure what they are going to do or if they like engineering yet,” Schiffbauer said. “It gives them exposure to different technologies and disciplines, and maybe helps them solidify what they want to do as they go forward.”
Public school teachers also appreciate the advantages offered by E-Days.Yolanda Pato, a gifted teacher at Frazier School District, has brought groups to the program twice. As she toured this year’s exhibits with five of her students, Pato said, “I think universities need to make a connection to public schools in the area, because Penn State Fayette has resources here that we don’t have in our public schools that these kids can have access to. That way, students get to learn about the universities and what the universities offer.”
These educational partnerships ultimately benefit students by helping them to choose good-paying science-related careers, according to Pato. She said, “This program exposes the kids to engineering themes. That is where the future is, and I think they should be exposed to these kinds of things.”
Many of the Penn State Fayette undergrads who took part in E-Days echoed Pato’s comments on the importance of this type of program in getting children interested in science and technology careers. Justine Waggel of Connellsville, whose tabletop exhibit was on the electromagnetic spectrum, said, “Technical fields are always very hot; they are always needed.”
Waggel mentioned another benefit of E-Days that was perhaps more obvious to her as someone who began considering a career as an engineer while still a girl. She said, “It’s great seeing kids involved — especially females, because they don’t have the opportunities that males have to be exposed to engineering. I think it’s really great for them to see there are women here.”
Nodding their heads in agreement were two of Waggel’s classmates: Courtney Grimm of Smithfield and Eden Holland of Monessen. Holland said her presence and that of the other female undergrads “might interest girls, since they know we are all engineering students.”
So, even though Holland, Waggel and Grimm were enthusiastically describing tabletop displays on the light spectrum, their presence was actually speaking volumes on another subject: these young female engineers-in-training at Penn State Fayette were serving as role models to the middle-school girls — and boys.
As Grimm noted, “I think it is good to get girls into engineering, because it is mostly a male-dominated field. We need more powerful females.”
Of all the types of light on display this year at Penn State Fayette’s E-Days, one shining quite powerfully was focused on Grimm and her female classmates.