November 2005, Issue #43
Letter from JETS
JETS moves into high gear this month with the 2005 JWOD-JETS National Engineering Design Challenge well underway and registration in full swing for the 2005-2006 TEAMS competition.
Round I of NEDC wrapped up November 4 with all registrants completing the Internet scavenger hunt and many exciting ideas submitted with the solutions and sketches. Participants will be notified of advancement to Round II on November 23. Congratulations to all teams participating!
Registration is still open for our 2005-2006 TEAMS competition. We're excited to announce that five new universities have already signed up to host TEAMS this year—adding new competition sites to the more than 100 sites returning from last year. Now is a great time to register your teams and begin preparing for this fun and stimulating competition.
Both the feature of the month and the extreme engineer explore heating, ventilating, air conditioning, and refrigeration engineering (HVAC&R). This exciting engineering specialty looks at the whole building structure as well as the mechanical components that provide heating and air conditioning to make buildings energy efficient and comfortable for their occupants. If you're concerned about energy usage in the U.S., you'll be interested to know that buildings use nearly 40 percent of our nation's energy—and there are huge savings to be garnered with efficient HVAC&R design!
Our current event focuses on "How To Grow an Engineer." Of particular interest for parents, this article provides 10 steps to interest students in engineering and prepare them for success in a college engineering program.
Hands On Activities
JETS is also providing hands on activities and resources for the classroom. Actvities for this month are:
NACME Symposium 2005
Forging Partnerships . . . Sharing Goals
Meeting America’s Need for Engineering Talent was the topic during the three-day NACME symposium in Vienna, VA, November 14–16, 2005. The primary focus was K–12 education curriculum and the necessity to revitalize this system to encourage and prepare more young students — particularly minority and women— to pursue math- and science-based careers. Experts from several respected corporations, government agencies, and academic institutions presented their views on the importance of this issue. Common themes presented throughout the symposium were the need to create environments that foster innovation, effective communication, and problem solving skills as well as the importance of qualified instructors and curriculum enrichment materials.
JETS attended the symposium to further support its mission of increasing interest in and awareness of engineering and technology-based careers. Currently JETS programs serve more than 40,000 students each year — 34 percent are female and 22 percent represent minority populations. With the continual demand for a highly qualified and technical workforce, it has become increasingly more important to expand JETS programs until all students wanting to learn about engineering and technology do so. JETS is looking forward to increasing its visibility and outreach efforts while enhancing current programs to better meet the workforce demand.
For more information on the NACME Symposium, please visit www.NACME.org/symposium.
If you know of students, educators or engineers that would be interested in this kind of information please forward this newsletter and encourage them to subscribe.
