AEDC workers take part in STEM workshop

  • Published
  • By Patrick Ary
  • AEDC/PA
ARNOLD AIR FORCE BASE, Tenn. --  AEDC workers are getting the tools they need to inspire young minds and encourage students to consider careers in engineering.

Seventeen AEDC and Aerospace Testing Alliance (ATA) employees and four local teachers visited the Challenger/STEM Center at the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga Aug. 2-3, where they took part in classroom activities that they can now share with students at local schools.

The goal of the workshop was to come up with a program to use in the communities surrounding AEDC, said complex STEM coordinator Jere Matty.

"We had visited several STEM centers, and we found that UTC had already put together a structured STEM program that hit most of the Tennessee and national STEM standards," Matty said. "We were trying to take advantage of that so we didn't have to come up with a program for our local area from scratch."

The Challenger Center is an informal science education facility that exists as a living memorial in honor of the Challenger crew and is designed to promote the areas of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) to students. There are 48 Challenger Learning Centers located around the world.

While the center at UTC normally has students come in and take part in interactive learning, they also hold workshops for teachers, said Center Director Thomas Patty.

"It's content strengthening and content enrichment for the teacher," Patty said. "And it's in areas that have already been aligned with the state's science curriculum."

AEDC workers took part in more than a dozen classroom activities from the perspective of the student.

"They were a great group," said Challenger Center program facilitator Shane Berry. "They were troopers in all senses of the word, as far as we asked them from the beginning to pretend like they were like fifth grade students - you know, put aside that big education that they have and all that knowledge that they have and see it from the child's perspective."

While there are dozens of teachers who come in for enrichment training at the center every year, Patty said it was good to see engineering professionals who want to inspire young people to explore STEM-related careers. He also said they can bring a work-related perspective to the classroom.

"They not only can bring the content knowledge of the activities that they learned about but also share with the students the real-world expectations of what happens in the engineering world, in the Arnold engineering environment," he said. "What they can expect to do or be doing while learning those activities at this basic level is so absolutely important and then from the teachers perspective, you've got some of the teachers out there having to teach math or science, and that may not be their area of specialty. So to have someone who comes in and maybe has worked in that and studied in that area and really can grasp the concepts is great."

Some who participated in the learning program say they now have a renewed interest in helping students get excited about a STEM-related career along with the tools they received at the Challenger Center.

"The STEM training I received gave me the push I needed to get involved with helping kids (and teachers) get excited about science, technology engineering and math," said Greg Burt, a section manager in ATA's Integrated Test and Evaluation Department. "I see so many kids 'existing' today ... nothing to motivate them to pursue engineering and science ... or any career field for that matter.

"Many graduate high school and then realize they need to make a decision on a career and decide on something they have not fully researched and are confused about what they want to do in a career," he said. "If somehow we can reach students in the local areas and help motivate them to get excited about a technical field of study, then we have been successful."

AEDC also received several teaching kits as part of the workshop. The kits contain the tools to teach the lessons they learned at the Challenger Center and will be available to lend out either to local teachers or to complex employees that want to take them to a school.

Matty, who said he was impressed with the curriculum the Challenger Center had put together, believes everyone who attended the workshop now has the tools to pass on their knowledge to the next generation of aspiring young engineers and scientists.

"I am positive we can teach them what they taught us," he said.