Student & Program Director, Your Place in Space Purdue University Centreville, Virginia, United States
Abstract: This project seeks to support and inspire school-aged students to pursue careers in the aerospace industry via hands-on workshops. The total solar eclipse on April 8, was an exceptional opportunity for children to engage with topics and careers in aerospace. While countless initiatives exist to introduce students to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) concepts, these programs often fail to connect this initial STEM inspiration to a viable career path. This project focuses on incorporating two components into hands-on STEM educational programming: asynchronous mentorship and career engagement. These elements were incorporated in the curriculum for a hands-on workshop about the total solar eclipse. Before beginning each activity, the profile of a professional working in a career related to the activity was shared with participants. This person served as an asynchronous mentor, introducing students to both a real person working in a particular technical field and to one potential career path into that industry. In addition, each activity was concluded with a group discussion encouraging the participants to envision themselves as an aerospace professional and introducing them to the skills and education someone in that field might need. Based on survey data, students who completed hands-on workshops like this one considered themselves more able to be an engineer or scientist and reported being familiar with more career paths following the program. While the solar eclipse served as the catalyst for this project, this mentorship and engagement framework is not limited to such an event and can be incorporated into other similar educational programming. Adding these components to an existing program or curriculum demonstrates a promising method to improve career awareness for students and to support and inspire future engineers, scientists, and aerospace professionals.
