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Tinker mentors help inspire local students

  • Published
  • By Mike W. Ray
  • Tinker Public Affairs
TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. --  Houses built of paper and tape, hover shoes, a portable electric outlet, micro-dot tracking and various water purifiers.

Those were some of the projects that 102 eighth graders from Monroney Middle School in Midwest City conceived recently under the guidance of Tinker Air Force Base mentors.

The Monroney students were encouraged to use their knowledge and imagination during a Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics event held Oct. 28 at Mid-Del Technology Center. The youngsters included advanced, at-risk and special-education students, Monroney Principal Mark Flies said.

Three employees of VIVA Technology, a Los Angeles, Calif., company, directed the program. VIVA sponsors the national K-12 STEM education awareness program and reportedly has introduced it in 17 states.

STEM, VIVA reports, is designed to "enlighten teachers, parents and K-12 students about the many ways that engineers and scientists affect our daily lives." Through a series of hands-on math and science activities, "We help participating students understand the correlation between their math and science studies and the many exciting careers" in science, technology, math and engineering.

"If we can get students excited about science and math today, there's a good chance they will pursue it further," said Cynthia Kennedy, K-12 science and engineering outreach coordinator at Tinker AFB. "We try to impress upon these kids that what they do now will benefit them later." Ms. Kennedy is employed in the Science and Engineering Workforce Development Branch of the Engineering Directorate in the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center.

The OC-ALC has hosted STEM for several years, she said, because the program "shows the students that their education can progress from middle school to high school, to college, and on to the professional level." The OC-ALC employs more than 1,600 scientists and engineers, she said. "We demonstrate to these students that you can get a first-class education in Oklahoma and make a living at Tinker Air Force Base."

Tinker personnel who mentored the eighth graders included Jeff Catron, chief of the Resources Division in the Engineering Directorate; David Campbell, manager of the OC-ALC Non-Destructive Inspection Program; Tanya Twitty, NDI engineer; Mike Scarborough, NDI quality assurance specialist, Jeff Carter, accessories engineer; and Joseph Johnston, Ph.D., an electronics engineer for Software Maintenance.

Students from the University of Oklahoma, Rose State College, and Oklahoma City Community College served as role models to the Monroney youngsters. For example, Jake Sparks, an OC-ALC/ENRW student intern who attends the University of Oklahoma, represented Oklahoma City Community College as a role model for the STEM event. The college students themselves benefited from the STEM program, too, as they were able to network with the Air Force personnel from Tinker. "It afforded them an opportunity to talk face-to-face with industry professionals," Ms. Kennedy noted.

The Monroney students - who were chaperoned by teachers Ryan McDonald, Lori Burris, Cindy Melton, Lahonda Gardella and Vickie Yarholar, as well as Principal Flies - assembled into 10 teams to work on three projects during the daylong STEM program.

First, they were given a stack of newspapers and rolls of masking tape and instructed to build a free-standing enclosed structure large enough to contain at least one of their team members, and equipped with a door that opened and closed.

A time limit was imposed on the construction project because, "Sometimes we have really tight time constraints," explained Loren Cisne of VIVA Technology. She was accompanied by colleagues Helen Barre and Juan Trejo.

The second event was an outdoor competition to determine which team could launch a model rocket the farthest distance. The third contest was a "dream invention challenge" in which each team was permitted to develop a "prototype" of its choosing.

"I'm a believer in project-based, hands-on learning," Ms. Kennedy said.

The STEM event at Mid-Del Tech Center cost $25,000, Ms. Kennedy said, and was financed with a grant from the National Defense Department of Education Program, a Department of Defense project. The funds were used to provide each of the college "captains" with a $100 stipend and to provide the Monroney students with various prizes, which included an electronic notebook, a laptop computer and several iPods.