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PLANE TOSS: Students from Hazelwood Central Middle School take part in a paper plane tossing contest after meeting with engineers from The Boeing Company. Vontrel Reese, an eighth grader, steps to the line to fly his plane while classmate Shaun Conway waits and Lauren Vaughn-Brandstetter of Boeing looks on.

At Hazelwood Central Middle School, Space Awareness Day gave students an opportunity to learn about engineering from professionals who work in the field with The Boeing Company.

Through its education outreach program, engineers met with students to share their experience, explain their jobs and answer questions in two sessions. Jeremiah Giles, a systems engineer, met with students in the morning. Dan Robinson, a multi-skill engineer, met with students in the afternoon. Lauren Vaughn-Brandstetter, education program manager, accompanied the engineers, providing assistance with the presentations, answering questions about the history of Boeing and sharing her role with the organization.

Chandria Howard, Students’ Activities in Investigative Learning (SAIL) instructor, worked with Boeing to set up the day’s program. One of the goals of Space Awareness Day was to “enhance excitement about career goals.”

Students from throughout the building, including those in SAIL and Gateway to Technology (GTT) classes, gathered in the library to learn about the possibilities of math, engineering, technology and science as future fields of study or careers.

In his session, Giles spoke about his education, described what being an engineer is like and emphasized the importance of math and science. Using a PowerPoint presentation, he was candid about salaries, using creativity and imagination, and the projects he works on involving planes and spacecraft.

For example, he showed the students a simulated game in which a military plane tries to detect a target. The example included mathematical equations necessary for accomplishing the task. Many of his examples involved equations that looked complicated, but he broke them down into concepts that students already understand to make them less intimidating, such as square roots, multiplication and division.

Giles admitted that he started college as a business major, but changed his mind, therefore taking six years to graduate from college. After his presentation, many students asked questions and answered a short survey to provide feedback. Giles enjoys talking to students because it’s an “opportunity to inform youth about engineering. When I was younger, I didn’t have these types of presentations and I didn’t understand the concepts of engineering until high school.

“I think these types of activities will have an impact if the presentations, or the guests, are invited regularly. It will build a relationship with the students over time and if the students see them regularly, they’ll have the confidence to ask more questions of the engineers,” he said.

The session ended with a friendly competition among the students to test who could craft a paper airplane and fly it the farthest distance. to the line to throw their planes.

Some went far; some did not. One plane landed high above in the rafters. Some planes sailed smoothly, while others fell away to the ground in a flutter or a lurch. Everyone cheered on those who were more successful and the winners were given prizes. (story provided by Hazelwood Communications Dept.)

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