If You Build a Skiff, They Will Come to Love Science
How do you design and build a toy boat, using only a piece of aluminum foil 6 inches wide and 12 inches long, that will carry the largest number of marbles without sinking?
You may be stumped, but a lot of elementary school children can answer that question, thanks to an extraordinary program that began in Orange County six years ago and has now spread to eight states from California to Massachusetts.
A few years ago, George B. Westrom, director of advanced systems development for Odetics in Anaheim, was deeply distressed by a widely perceived lack of interest in science and technology among this country’s young people. He concluded that could only lead to a catastrophic decline in the quality of the work force in the years ahead. But instead of just complaining, Westrom decided to do something about it.
Working with the Orange County Engineering Council, he founded the Future Scientists and Engineers of America, an after-school program designed to stimulate interest in science and engineering among youngsters by giving them projects to solve that lead to a greater understanding of technical issues. Today Westrom says the program is achieving its most important goal.
The students, he says, “begin to understand that technical things are not all odious and boring, which is the general perception kids have in school, but [that] indeed they are a lot of fun.”
From the beginning, Westrom’s goal was to involve scientists and engineers from the community in the educational process, serving as mentors to teachers and providing technical insight into complex problems.
“The community has to be involved in education,” he says. “If we leave it up to the schools, we have no right to believe we are going to get a competent work force.”
But even simple projects can be costly, and with schools strapped for money, Westrom knew his dream would die unless he could raise the money to make it a free program. Once again, he turned to the community.
Today, Future Scientists and Engineers of America is sponsored by more than 70 businesses, supporting more than 100 chapters and serving more than 4,000 children. Sponsors range from aerospace giants to muffler shops to individuals--$1,000 will pay all the costs for 25 students for a full year. The National Science Foundation recently threw its support behind the program with a $178,874 grant.
“It takes a little bit of money, and a little bit of time,” Westrom says. “But it doesn’t take much of either one.”
“We furnish all the materials, all the documentation, everything,” he says, “including start-up workshop training.” One prerequisite to starting a chapter is a demonstration of support from the local community.
About 30 technical projects are now being carried out by students from elementary through high school grades. A complete description of the projects is available on the organization’s home page on the world wide web (https://www.fsea.org)
Projects range from simple trial-and-error experiments to complex designs that require some understanding of advanced mathematics. But all have one thing in common: to teach by doing, not just listening.
One of the most popular on the elementary level is the “land yacht.” Students are divided into teams of two, and as mentors from the technical community lean over their shoulders, they build wind-powered cars.
“The objective is to build a sail car so that when you put up a fan, it goes faster than the others,” Westrom says. “So now they have to solve some technical problems. They have to make it roll easily, so they have to solve the friction problem. From that alone they get an understanding of friction which they could never get from all the lectures that anybody could ever give them. Because when their car doesn’t move and their competing teams goes scooting along, they begin to say, ‘What is going on here?’ So they get a very healthy and immediate understanding of friction.”
They also have to learn how to design a sail that will not destroy the car’s stability. But they also learn, Westrom believes, that science and engineering can be fun.
Some projects are designed to be used by students of all ages, with graduated levels of difficulty.
Elementary students, for example, are given a piece of aluminum foil and told to design and build a boat that will carry the most marbles without sinking. They try it over and over until they hit on the design that seems to work the best.
But the same project, on a high school level, uses a boat built out of cardboard, which is less forgiving than foil. The students who excel there are the ones who understand a little about calculus, because mathematical formulas will yield the best design.
“I’ve had students come to me and say, ‘I’m taking differential calculus, and I had no idea it was good for anything,’ ” Westrom says.
In addition to providing more scientists and engineers to meet the country’s needs in the future, Westrom believes the program could help eradicate an imbalance in those communities. Most of the students in a given chapter are females, and minority participation is stressed.
From its humble beginnings in Orange County, the organization is rapidly becoming a national program. That fits neatly with one of Westrom’s earliest goals.
“My idea was to start something that had some hope of success,” he says.
Today there are chapters throughout much of California, including Orange, Los Angeles, Riverside and San Diego counties, as well as in Arizona, Connecticut, Texas, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Washington.
Lee Dye can be reached via e-mail at 72040.3515@compuserve.com
