Local 7th graders learn about engineering

HOUGHTON — Houghton Middle School students got a look at what science and engineering can make possible.

The applications of science and engineering to the real world are limitless. Over 120 seventh grade students from Houghton Middle School were introduced to some of those possibilities at Michigan Tech thanks to the Lake Superior Stewardship
Initiative. In one session, students learned how a filtration system developed by Michigan Tech Civil & Environmental Engineering Professor Dave Hand was used to recycle water on board the space station and how that process can be used here on earth.

Students were shown how their preparation in the classroom can lead to their future at college. Houghton Middle School Science Teacher Sarah Geborkoff said, “My group has gotten to tour the Chemical Engineering lab facilities and gotten to see some of the special research projects students are working on and listen to the path of the students from their freshman year to their senior year and how they’ve been living their lives here at Tech.”

The day gives the students the opportunity to see things from a different perspective.

7th grader Cassidy See said, “Today, we’re learning about different types of engineers and what they do here at Tech. It’s cool to learn it, because we don’t usually learn this type of stuff at school.”

Like what they may want to be when they grow up.

7th grader Maya Stier said, You kind of get to see what you like and what you don’t like. So, I still don’t know what I would like to be but I know that I, this is cool to do. This was a cool class.”

Presentations were given by Michigan Tech’s departments of Mechanical Engineering, Civil & Environmental Engineering, Physics, School of Forest Resources & Environmental Science and the Michigan Tech Center for Science & Environmental
Outreach.