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Idaho students will see science in action at ITD Wednesday

Eager volunteers, interesting exhibits and a plethora of hands-on activities await more than 100 students from Canyon County’s 2C Science Camp and Idaho State University’s summer camp next week.

They will spend Wednesday (June 12) exploring science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) at ITD Headquarters.

Department staff members will guide small groups of students through the East Annex where they will watch chemistry, geotechnical and structure demonstrations.

“Our volunteers serve as role models, “said Ken Angell, EEO/DBE program manager. “They provide opportunities to see how classroom knowledge is applied to real-world challenges.”

An outdoor display will feature an ITD Incident Response Truck, a fully equipped dump truck/snow plow and a snowplow-training simulator.

Last year, the snowplow simulator proved popular with students. Many took a chance at trying to plow snow while keeping their simulated vehicle on a virtual highway and not hitting another vehicle or random obstruction in the process.

This year, ITD partnered with Discover Technology to offer more hands-on opportunities for the visiting students using a STEM Mobile Discovery Lab. The lab is a refurbished, public-transit bus equipped with the latest technologies enabling up to 22 students to work on projects ranging from bio-tech to video-game programming, robotics and even electronics and circuitry.

A Discover Technology robot will welcome students to ITD and the day’s activities.

The 2C Science Camp and ISU summer camp were created independently to give students an opportunity to participate in hands-on projects and allow them to experience STEM subjects in a new and exciting way.

The experience is meant to encourage students to stay in school, take more mathematics and sciences classes, consider post-high school education and pursue careers in engineering and technology.