Fourth grade students from the Visitation School in Mendota Heights met virtually with St. Thomas School of Engineering students to ask questions about the structures that they built and tested in tornado, flood, tsunami, mudslide, earthquake and hurricane simulators. Engineering Professor Deb Besser wrote about the experience on LinkedIn. She said:
From Besser's social post: Visitation Tech Integrationist, Ms. Kelsey Irizarry and Curriculum Enrichment Specialist, Ms. Tara Schletz, graduates of the St. Thomas Engineering Education graduate certificate program have built engineering know-how in their students. The fourth-grade students are ready to ask the hard-hitting questions that engineers like to answer, including, “how much water pressure is there in the hurricane simulator?” And St. Thomas ENGR 100 Introduction to Engineering Design students are ready to answer and inspire these future engineers with the simulators that they designed!
It was truly inspiring to see engineering design skills, knowledge and empathy embodied in our engineers as they engaged their fourth graders! Each of the testing simulators met the engineering criteria and provided innovation that exceeded the design goals. It is going to be exciting to see how these first semester engineering design skills continue to strengthen through the next four years!