6/11/2013
Idaho students will see science in action at ITD Wednesday
BOISE - Eager volunteers, interesting exhibits and hands-on activities await more than 100 students from Canyon County’s 2C Science Camp and Idaho State University’s summer camp who will spend Wednesday (June 12) exploring science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) at the Idaho Transportation Department.
ITD staffers will guide small groups of students through the department’s East Annex, where they will watch various chemistry, geotechnical and structure demonstrations take place.
Download a copy of the day’s agenda here.
“Our volunteers serve as role models,“ said Ken Angell, the department's 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/snow truck and a snowplow-training simulator.
Last year, the snowplow simulator proved popular with the 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 other random obstruction.
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 to robotics and even electronics and circuitry.
The students will be welcomed to ITD and the day’s activities by a Discover Technology robot.
The 2C Science Camp and ISU summer camp were created to give students an opportunity to participate in hands-on projects, allowing 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, and consider continuing their education to go on to careers in engineering and technology.