There are lots of different kinds of engineering – electrical, structural, mechanical, civil – and therefore, we need young people with lots of different interests and skills to fill those jobs for the next generation. And we especially want to encourage young women to explore engineering fields! Last Saturday the Museum held an event “engineered” to do just that. During our Engineering Day, activities and speakers showed off the creative and collaborative nature of engineering, and how engineers of all kinds are changing our world. Panels of successful female engineers provided some career awareness and inspiration by sharing their stories and some keys to their success, local engineering organizations and students showcased their innovations, and Museum staff delivered lots of fun hands-on activities and workshops for over 500 visitors.

This event was designed to stimulate the next generation of engineers, and could not have been carried out without the generous support of our current generation of engineers and other professionals. Special thanks goes to one of our newest members of the Miami Science Museum Board of Trustees, Vanessa Grout. As President/CEO of Douglas Elliman Florida, which served as title sponsor for the event, she was a source of unwavering support. And after attending the event, she felt that “the enthusiasm shared by the children as they participated in the learning exercises was inspiring.”

Other organizations that provided speakers, volunteers, and hands-on activities for the event included the National Engineers Week Foundation, IBM, Johnson Controls, Society of Women Engineers chapters from University of Miami and Florida International University, the Tau Beta Pi chapter at FIU, Girls Scouts of Tropical Florida, United States Air Force, and the American Society of Civil Engineers. Additionally, generous financial support from Morgan Energy, Douglas Elliman Real Estate, and the Cuban American Association of Civil Engineers allowed this event to be free of charge for all students, male and female, in grades K-12.

Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day 2001 was the first national call-out to the profession to focus on getting more girls into engineering and technology. The founding partners were the Society of Women Engineers, MentorNet, IBM, the Association for Women in Science, the Women in Engineering ProActive Network, and the National Engineers Week Foundation. The day serves as catalyst and focal point for activism, and each year during Engineers Week, “Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day” encourages thousands of women engineers, with support from their male counterparts, to directly mentor more than one million girls and young women in K-12 with first-hand experiences in engineering.

The Museum’s involvement in the annual national celebration of Engineering Week, as well as “Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day,” started three years ago as a direct result of our leadership role in the Girls RISE National Museum Network project, funded by the National Science Foundation.

Museum staff always work really hard to find ways to inspire young people, and our visitors, in science and the world around them. But we love being inspired by someone teaching us something new too. Recently, Erica Moulton of the MATE (Marine Advanced Technology Education) Center led Museum staff in a workshop to build and design remotely-operated (ROV) vehicles. ROVs can explore underwater environments where it is difficult or impossible for humans to go themselves. They can monitor coral reef systems, explore shipwrecks, or even go underneath ice sheets in Antarctica. They can observe, but also take photos, videos, and even collect specimens. And it takes a lot of people with many different skills to get ROVs from design to operation to observation to results – like electricians, engineers, and all different kinds of scientists, depending on what you want to learn from what the ROV observed or collected. But as we at the Museum always like to remind people, you can do science anywhere, at any time, with simple materials you can find in your kitchen drawers or at the local hardware store. Ms. Moulton, through a National Science Foundation ITEST grant, provided us with several ROV kits and all the materials necessary to build ROVs with our Museum audiences. She uses these same kits to work with schools and teachers on engaging students in ROVs, which then may be entered into regional and national ROV student competitions. At the workshop, we worked in teams to glue little propellers to motors, solder wires to electrical switches, build the frame of the ROV using pieces of PVC piping, and add foam tubing to help with floatation. Now our ROVs are ready to explore, and we are so excited to find all the ways to pass on our inspiration to our Museum audiences, and let others try their hand at ROV building and operating!

Our ROV in a Bag kit

Wiring and soldering the switches on the box to operate the ROV

Adding some foam to our almost-finished ROV frame

Nearly 1.5 million visitors throughout the U.S. and Canada have enjoyed the Museum’s touring exhibition: Amazon Voyage: Vicious Fishes and Other Riches. Launched in 2005, with competitive funding from the National Science Foundation, the exhibition is currently at the Don Harrington Discovery Center in Amarillo, Texas, marking its 15th venue over the last 5 years. Visitors have enjoyed this remarkable 5,000 square-foot bilingual exhibition, where visitors embark on a voyage along the most biologically diverse river system in the world and encounter creatures worthy of legend, including piranhas, anacondas, caimans, stingrays and pink dolphins.

The Academy of Natural Sciences (ANSP) recently featured one piece of the Amazon Voyage puzzle in its “200 Years. 200 Stories.” segment online. The article on the ANSP website describes the evolution of the modern day piranha from its ancestor the prehistoric Megapiranha which existed about 9 million years ago. The illustration used for the article was created specifically for Amazon Voyage by artist Ray Troll.

 To read the full text, visit: http://www.ansp.org/200/stories/a-bite-of-evolution