Outreach and Hands-On Activities
The center has developed innovative hands-on engineering activities which are delivered not only to students during local recruiting visits to K-12 schools and STEM-focused events, but also to community and industry stakeholders. The trailer used to transport the activities and the developed hands-on activities are shown and described in Figure 1 and Figure 2, respectively. The activities are delivered by faculty, undergraduate and graduate students that are funded through the center and that also serve as role models to student participants. Lecture notes, instructions and training videos were prepared to facilitate the delivery of the demonstrations in a regionally relevant context and also lending the activities to external entities in the future. Events in which the center participates in a regular basis are listed in Table 1. Additional to these events, the center coordinates hands-on demonstrations and tours to the Environmental and Water Resources labs for student groups visiting UNM through the Engineering Student Success Center in the School of Engineer (http://ess.unm.edu).
Table 1: Annual Outreach Events
|
Fall 2017 |
Spring 2018 |
|
UNM Water Day – STEM Collaborative Center |
Expanding Your Horizons Event |
|
American Society of Civil Engineers Dream Big Event |
Discover STEM Week – National Museum of Nuclear History |
|
UNM School of Engineering Open House |
NM STEM Fiesta – Explora |
|
Rio Rancho Children’s Water Festival – City of Rio Rancho |
|
|
Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central New Mexico 2017 Discovery Festival |
|
|
Math Moves U – UNM School of Engineering |
|
Figure 1: Trailer to transport hands-on demonstrations.
Figure 2: Description of hands-on demonstrations and their interconnections.