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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 4, 2007 |
Contact: |
Leann Yoder
lyoder@jets.org
703-548-5387, ext. 105 |
JETS Announces the Launch of a New Web site
Explore… Assess… Experience Engineering
www.jets.org
Bringing engineering to life-it's the task at hand everyday for JETS. To make this creative and worthwhile profession come alive for a national audience of high school students, JETS has streamlined its focus and developed a new web site encompassing a three-pronged approach to engineering: Explore, Assess, and Experience.
Amidst the bright colors, participant photos, encouraging career messages, and fresh content, visitors will find information about JETS academic competitions and career resources organized into clearly defined categories that will directly tap into the unique interests and needs of young people, their parents, and educators.
"Explore" will feature video clips, extreme engineer interviews, and content covering more than 20 disciplines. By showing how engineering is at the core of everything from snowboard design to medical advances to suspension systems for Formula 1 racecars, visitors can discover the world of engineering and how the profession makes a difference in our lives. Also housed in Explore will be the popular online newsletter, the JETS Pre-Engineering Times, with highlights on young engineers, hot topics in engineering, and hands-on classroom activities which further elaborate the engineering message to its 20,000 monthly readers.
"Assess", the second component and aptly named after the JETS academic diagnostic tool, provides a much needed source of academic encouragement for students exploring careers. The current message received most often by students about engineering is that it's only for people who excel in math and science (a particular turnoff for females and minorities). However, other components-structural visualization and sequential and analytical thinking-are also important skills in the profession and are often overlooked when students learn about engineering. Assess is designed to help students make an academic connection with their interests and talents. JETS Executive Director, Leann Yoder, says, "We need a bigger appeal if we are going to grow the ranks of those ready to take on engineering studies. The new approach with Assess is more attractive to girls, minorities, and other students who have the talents to pursue engineering but simply aren't considering it."
The third component, "Experience", presents a new outlook for JETS academic competitions and classroom activities. The two national competitions, TEAMS and NEDC, put students in touch with real-world engineering challenges and gives them a first-hand look at how they can make a difference in the world. Wanting to help teachers and educators, JETS is making available the weekly JETS Challenge, Engineering Pathways activities, and an Engineers Without Boarders project to provide new opportunities to bring engineering to life in the classroom.
"Engineering is one of the most versatile professions that students can pursue," says Yoder. "JETS is doing its best to bring this message to the forefront and we expect our new approach to spread it loud and clear."
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