Building our future, one student at a time.

Extraordinary young Engineers.

Greetings, and welcome to a new school year.  We are pleased to announce that our first “Straight Talk” session of the school year was a huge success.

It was so great to be back in front of the students again.  They bring a special gift of love and curiosity to us every month and we just soak it all up.

Explaining Civil Engineering

So this month’s presentation was about the career of Civil Engineering.  Mr. Howie Prendegast, who works at National Works Agency as a Civil Engineer, explained all the different ways that engineering is used in our everyday life.  Then the students got involved and started to ‘school’ us on civil engineering that they see every single day… ‘A bridge that crosses the gully, how push carts are designed, etc.’ Mr. Prendegast then took those examples and turned them into demonstrations.  He explained, through drawing, just how important civil engineering is to the examples given and then added a few of his own.  Take for instance cars, well how do auto manufacturers know what load and capacity the car should be built for? They consult a civil engineer.  Water ways are designed by civil engineers to make the most efficient system to deliver water, and remove waste.

Captivated!!!

The next part of session was actual hands on. The students got a chance to put in the work, as teams, to build the parts of a bridge. The idea was, when the parts are built separately in teams, each team will then connect their part to another team. Eventually, we would have a working bridge, symbolizing the need to work together to achieve a goal. We used the exercise as an analogy of life and the benefits of working together as a community rather than as individuals. We explained that even though each student/team member had his/her own skills, it took each team to bring the project together.

In deep thought about the work ahead.

We had so much fun with the exercise that we ran out of time and had to schedule a second visit to the school to finish the bridge.  Fortunately for us, the Boy’s Town faculty stood up and stated that they would make sure that the sections are finished so that when we return, we will just have to show how each section builds the final product.

The participation of the faculty, and staff was so great.  We were also pleased to hear just how much Boy’s Town had improved in one school year.  Within one school year, the school average literacy score moved from 32% to 72%.  That speaks volumes about the work that Principal Sylvia Banks, her faculty and staff and other partners are doing.  Hats off to you all for a fine job of motivating the students to achieve more.

Check out the photos below to get a glimpse into the fun we had.