Outreach Activities

Want to be an ASCE All-Star? Per ASCE Mission bullet #3, "To improve our community through effective community outreach programs, local involvement and educational efforts," try participating in one of these excellent outreach activities.

As well as participating in the National Concrete Canoe Competition and Concrete Carnival that was held in June 2004, we're trying to make larger committments to College Bound and Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Washington. Both programs work directly with the region's youth to provide brighter futures. Obviously, this requires some amount of enigneering. For more information on both of these activities see below.

We are also looking for volunteers to join the outreach committee, including those interested in serving as liasons to a local university (Howard, UDC, and GMU positions are still available). Commitment is minimal yet rewarding.

Lastly, National Engineer's Week (http://www.eweek.org), despite its name, organises events all year round. PBS also offers two nationally-recognized programs: Building Big and ZOOM into Engineering.

Contact the Committee Members for information on how you can participate.

Citizen Science, the science and technology program of SustainUS, is pleased to announce the first-ever CITIZEN SCIENTIST science writing competition for young people (ages 13-26) in the United States. The best scientific papers written for a general audience on any topic relating to the economic, social, or environmental dimensions of sustainable development will be published in the Citizen Science online journal. Authors will receive a free magazine subscription and have an exclusive opportunity to present their respective ideas at the United Nations.

For more information about SustainUS, visit http://www.sustainus.org.

Visit http://www.asce.org/inside/nccc.cfm for more information.

College Bound is a non-profit tutoring and mentoring program that prepares DC area public school students (in grades 8-12) for college. We match each volunteer with one student that s/he tutors once per week for two hours. The commitment lasts for the duration of the school year.

For more information see www.collegebound.org or contact Ebony Lea (ebony@collegebound.org or 202-842-4014).

The mission of Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Washington is to help boys and girls of all backgrounds, with an emphasis on at-risk youth, build confidence, develop character and acquire the skills needed to become productive, civic-minded, responsible adults.

For more information see www.bgcgw.org.

This is based on a five-part miniseries on megastructures, hosted by renowned author-illustrator David Macaulay, exploring the history behind some of the world's greatest feats of engineering and the ingenuity of the engineers, architects, and builders who designed and built them.

Look out for announcements on ways you can get involved locally.

Additional resources are available at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/buildingbig.

A partnership between the popular kids' TV show and National Engineers' Week, which ASCE co-chaired, is continued throughout the year by volunteers.

Read the ASCE introduction to ZOOM into Engineering, and look out for announcements on ways you can get involved locally.

Additional resources are available at http://pbskids.org/zoom/grownups/engineering.

"The mission of the National Engineers Week Future City Competition is to provide a fun and exciting educational engineering program for seventh- and eighth-grade students that combines a stimulating engineering challenge with a "hands-on" application to present their vision of a city of the future."

If you need more information you can check out the Future City's website, http://www.futurecity.org.

Visit http://bridgecontest.usma.edu for more information.