For the next four weeks, students from across the state and from as far away as Florida and California will travel to West Virginia University’s Evansdale campus to take part in the Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resource’s Engineering Challenge Summer Camps.

The camps are an opportunity for students to get excited about science and engineering by tackling engineering-related challenges.

“This is our second year running the Engineering Challenge Camps, and I’m excited to see the campers’ reactions to what we have planned for this year,” said Cate Schlobohm, outreach coordinator. “We have more campers attending than last year, and the agenda is packed with hands-on, engineering-based projects and competitions.”

Each week of camp will feature a different theme and will be open to a different age group of students. The week of July 7, high school-aged students will attend a sustainability-focused co-ed camp, which will feature a series of energy-related problems for the campers to solve. Tasks include building a solar cell and solar oven, making charcoal and a windmill activity.

The second week of camp will also be for high school students and will allow campers to “connect the dots” between what they learn in an engineering class and how it’s applied in industry. The week, which begins July 14, features a rocket design and build activity, a melon drop and chemistry experiments.

Two camps will be held the week of July 21. The first, for middle school-aged students, will combine engineering principles with a bit of fun to enhance already existing games such as Twister, Connect Four and Kerplunk, as well as creating new, engineering-based games. The College will host its first-ever all-female high school camp as well that week, giving campers the opportunity to meet and work with female faculty members and successful female alumnae on design projects and competitions.

“It’s no secret that STEM fields are often seen as something open only to males,” Schlobohm said. “By pairing female campers with female students, faculty and alumnae, we are hoping to give them more of a mentorship experience; an experience that will show them that they can succeed in what is largely considered to be male-dominated fields.”

For a complete list of camp activities, visit http://www.statler.wvu.edu/prospective/camps/#Camp1.

The camps will be led by faculty from the Statler College with support from current students.

“These camps are important to the Statler College, because we’re showing the next generation of engineers how cool this field is and our faculty and students are living proof of that,” Schlobohm said. “If we can get theses students excited about science, technology, engineering and math at a young age, they’re more likely to pursue an education in one of these fields.”

Financial support for the camps was provided, in part, by Haliburton, PPG Industries and the Service League of Morgantown.

-WVU-

mcd/07/03/13

CONTACT: Mary C. Dillon, Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources
304-293-4086, Mary.Dillon@mail.wvu.edu

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