On Thursday, April 26th, 2018, 112 fourth graders visited Blaine high school. University Avenue elementary’s program ACES (Aerospace, Children’s engineering, and science) visited several CEMs classes throughout fourth hour. The 112 fourth graders were split into 4 even sized groups of 28. Two sets of groups visited Physics and Principles of Engineering classes. The other two groups visited Aerospace, and the Senior engineering and design class. They came during fourth hour and spent 30 minutes (12:00-12:30, 12:35-1:05) in either pair of classes (Aerospace-POE, or Physics, Senior engineering).

The kids who came to visit the classes loved talking with the older kids. Mrs. Athman said, “They think of high schoolers as heroes,” many of the students that visited Blaine looked up to the older students in inspiration. This program (and University Avenue elementary) is a feeder for Blaine high school, which is why CEMS wants to influence kids at a young age. The reason for bringing students from ACES is to show and introduce the kids toCEMS and to spark some interest in them. The reasoning behind the idea is to get students involved at a young age so that they are more pushed towards the engineering programs when they are older. Blaine high school sponsors this field trip because they’ve found that a majority of students that are in CEMS are male, but as elementary schoolers, the classrooms for ACES is split evenly among females and males.

Fourth graders that visited the classrooms learned new things such as “music hav[ing] to do with physics,” and ” the importance of teamwork.” The students were intrigued and inspired by the hard work and fun of those classes. Because of this, ACES  has visited Blaine high school for their 2nd year in a row with positive results from both years.

Within the Aerospace engineering classroom, the high school students were required to show the fourth-grade students how to fly around on the flight simulator. They picked various places around the world to fly and gave some background information about the Blaine high school.

In return, the fourth graders also talked to the high schoolers about their life. I asked one of the students in the aerospace classroom what their favorite part was. He said,”My favorite part about working with them was seeing how kids react when they are presented with an unfamiliar situation, they just jump right into it with little inhibition.” He mentioned that he would absolutely do it again and that it made him a little nostalgic.

Both the teachers and students enjoyed this experience and have helped elementary students develop a better idea of CEMS and the cool projects and activities that go with those classes. A special thanks goes to Mrs. Birkmeier for setting up this event for all of the students.