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Formerly known as the Engineering Education Advocate
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Books by Celeste Baine
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Engineering Graphics Teacher's Guide |
Aeronautical Engineering Teacher's Guide |
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Civil Engineering Teacher's Guide |
Teaching Engineering Made Easy: A Friendly Introduction to Engineering Activities for Middle School Teachers |
The Musical Engineer: A Music Enthusiast's Guide to Engineering and Technology Careers |
The Fantastical Engineer: A Thrillseeker's Guide to Careers in Theme Park Engineering - Second Edition |
High Tech Hot Shots: Careers in Sports Engineering |
Is There an Engineer Inside You?: A Comprehensive Guide to Career Decisions in Engineering |
I Need My Space
Assuming that astronauts, spacewalks and rockets already enamor students, the greatest thing about motivating students to pursue engineering or technology in this arena is that they can be almost any type of engineer to get involved. When I was a kid, I thought that I had to be an aerospace engineer to become an astronaut and get a job at NASA. I had no interest in aerospace so I never even entertained the idea of being a part of the space program.For students today, I'm happy to say that I had bad information. NASA hires biomedical engineers to make space suits, chemical engineers to help with life support systems, mechanical engineers work on almost everything, electrical engineers work on control systems, etc. There are endless opportunities for students in this field and they don't have to narrow their interests to succeed. Some engineers might spend their days fine-tuning a set of million dollar micro-cameras so the rovers can "see" better while exploring miles of Martian terrain. Or, they might be designing tele-operated mini-rovers in an office that looks more like a high-tech R&D lab at a toy company than a NASA research facility.
Dr. Sally Ride gives great advice to students. She says, "The most important steps that I followed were studying math and science in school. I think the advice that I would give to any kids who want to be astronauts is to make sure that they realize that NASA is looking for people with a whole variety of backgrounds: they are looking for medical doctors, microbiologists, geologists, physicists, electrical engineers. So find something that you really like and then pursue it as far as you can and NASA is apt to be interested in that profession."
NASA's web site is full of information to help you engage students. You can watch video of the shuttle launch and even see it from a camera on the solid rocket boosters. There are numerous pictures and classroom activities for every age. It's easy to get information and students involved by visiting http://www.nasa.gov.
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Posted by Celeste Baine on April 30, 2008
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