Giving the College Dream a Hands-On Push
(via San Antonio Express News)
While she was in school, the only subject that interested Pam Colby was business. It’s the only thing she thought about, she said, until she joined the U.S. Navy.
During her first week in the Navy, Colby took a test to rate her expertise in technology. Her test results ranked her in the lowest level, requiring her to sign up for a self-paced electronics course that should have taken her two months.
She finished it in two weeks.
“I didn’t know that I loved engineering, I never had the experience,” Colby said. “You need that hands-on experience.”
Upon retiring from the service, Colby got her master’s degree in computer sciences. She later joined the University of Texas at San Antonio’s interactive Technology Experience Center in the College of Engineering, funded by a $1.5 million AT&T Foundation gift to encourage schoolchildren to get excited about engineering.
On Thursday, Colby and others from UTSA manned several stations for a group of 150 fifth-graders from Southwest Independent School District’s Elm Creek Elementary School, giving them the hands-on experience that Colby said would help students get excited about science. The event was part of the Dream Runners program, created by UTSA’s P-20 Initiative Office and the university’s athletic department to promote higher education.
At Colby’s station, students sat in groups at tables, where they chose an item — a piece of hair, pencil lead, a feather from a jacket — to look at under iTEC’s scanning electronic microscope.
While many of the students already knew what a magnified ant looks like, hairy legs and all, they were intrigued by what they saw under the university’s machine, the only one like it in the area, Colby said.
“It’s a new level of exploration for them,” she said. “Now, engineering won’t be some abstract thing for them. They’ve looked under a microscope. They’ve been to college.”
College already is a familiar concept for Elm Creek students, despite the fact that it’s nearly a decade away. This is the school’s second year of participating in Dream Runners, which brings students closer to college through sporting events, mock lectures and sessions on campus.
“I already want to go to college so I can be a geologist,” said 10-year-old Isabella Rangel. “I really like rocks and crystals.”
She was in luck.
At one station, fifth-graders watched as UTSA students and staff sliced rock samples for future labs; at another, Rangel and her peers peeked inside a microscope at three types of igneous rocks.
“We’re talking about rocks right now in school, so this makes their learning meaningful and relevant,” said Kriesti Bunch, a fifth-grade academic coach at Elm Creek. “These are things we’re studying, and it also helps promote college and awareness of science.”
