Other Outreach Programs at the School of Engineering and Mines
The UND School of Engineering and Mines sponsors the annual FIRST LEGO League tournament for North Dakota, typically held in late January or early February. Teams of future engineers in grades 5-9 design and program a LEGO® MINDSTORMS® robot to achieve a specific set of tasks. Over 30 teams come together at the state tournament to test their creations against the best ideas from around the state. Tournament winners are eligible to move on to the World Festival, held later in the spring.
TSA (Technology Students Association) TEAMS (Test of Engineering Aptitude, Math and Science) Test
The National Society of Professional Engineers sponsors the TEAMS competition at UND each year to encourage participation in math, science and engineering activities. UND Engineering hosts the annual competition as part of the celebration of National Engineers Week. High school students participate in a day-long series of written exams and design challenges to test their math, science and critical thinking skills.
The Math Kangaroo Competition is a competitive math exam for students in grades 1 through 12. Participants' scores are judged against others in their age group. All participants receive prizes for participating and top national scorers are eligible for college grants and international camps. Every year more than 5,000,000 students from over 45 countries participate in the event. The competition is typically held at the University of North Dakota in March, with registration due in early January. For more information, contact Dr. Reza Fazel reza.fazel@engr.und.edu or 701-777-3368.
Power ON!
UND's new interdisciplinary outreach program brings science and technology to North Dakota's middle schools.
Why we need PowerON: The world faces enormous technical challenges in the years ahead - sustainable energy, food production, water supplies, etc. However, the US is not producing enough scientists and engineers. In fact, we are falling far behind other countries like China and India.
What can we do about it? We need to engage students early on - by high school it is too late. This program will target middle school students The way we are going to do it is by teaching them about issues related to sustainable energy and global climate change. Though hands on experiments, we'll show them how scientists and engineers are working to develop solutions to these problems. Sustainable energy is a topic they already have exposure to, we need to show them how they can be part of the solution.
How it will work: In the summer program, we will take our mobile lab out to rural schools and conduct 2 to 4 day programs which will be a mixture of instruction, demonstrations, and hands-on experiments. The mobile lab will have a media center, lab benches, fume hoods, etc. The experiments and instructional content will be developed by education and engineering students. Additional materials will be developed for middle school teachers to incorporate into their own lesson plans during the school year. The Dakota Science Center will be organizing and conducting the summer activities, along with student and community volunteers.
We're still in the process of constructing our mobile lab. If you're interested in scheduling a future visit, or you have questions, please contact Cheryl Osowski at 701-777-3390.
Nurturing American Tribal Undergraduate Research and Education (NATURE)
NATURE is an educational outreach program sponsored by the North Dakota Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (ND EPSCoR). NATURE is designed to build new and strengthen existing pathways for Native American students to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. Participants of the program include students and faculty from all five tribal colleges in North Dakota, high schools students and teachers from the four North Dakota Indian reservations, and faculty from research universities of North Dakota, North Dakota State University (NDSU) and University of North Dakota (UND).
