I promoted this from a comment on my post earlier about kids not wanting to go into manufacturing.
Hi Walt,
Saw your "kid's don't want to work in manufacturing" blog entry and wanted to send you some good news on this topic from my own back yard.
This past Sunday my local high school had an engineering expo. The school, with an enrollment of ~2700 in 4 grades, has an engineering program with over 200 students participating. It even has a booster program like the sports teams do! It's one of the few high school engineering programs in the country. Attached is information from the expo with a description of the program.
http://www.chsengineeringboosters.com/soe_info.htm
http://www.chsengineeringboosters.com/expo.htm
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/education/stories/111609dnmetengineers.39cef0a.html
At the expo the kids were proud to show off their projects, I was impressed by how they could communicate the technical work behind them. From the solar powered car project (they plan to drive it to Denver next summer) to the underwater robot. There was a large crowd of parents and students attending, I met some families from other school districts who came to see the expo. The parking lot was packed, just like at a high school sports event. There were lots of colleges from across the country (Cal Berkeley, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, George Tech,...) and companies exhibiting. The kids in this program and the attendees don't have a problem thinking that engineering is cool. These kids will be ready to excel in college and in careers.
I don't know him but parents with kids in the program told me the genius behind this is Mike Yakubovsky, a teacher at the high school.
He would be a good interview and worthy of an article.
All I had in high school was metal shop!
Best Regards,
Dave Emerson
Director, U.S. Development Center
Yokogawa
