I can think of a number of things that would be easier than getting kids ages 7-13 excited about the prospect of a long and prosperous career as a petroleum engineer.
But as the number of STEM careers continue to grow (for those unaware, that acronym is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics), the American public has a vested interest in encouraging children to pursue these fields of study. This summer, many cities across the country have played host to programs and camps focused on hooking future petroleum engineers while they're young.
Summer of Science
Huntsville, Alabama is built on STEM. The city of 186,000 residents is home to both the Marshall Space Flight Center and the headquarters for the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command. It's also home to a new initiative aimed at introducing STEM curriculum to local public elementary students.
Judy D’Amico, who represents the STEM organization Project Lead the Way, explained to a local news outlet why it's so important to reach younger schoolkids:
“High school in many cases is just too late…it needs to come earlier, and we need to get them excited and really ready to engage in STEM.”
Such is the case in Virginia, where The College of William & Mary is hosting an immersive summer science camp for disadvantaged middle school students who show promise in STEM subjects. Camp Launch, funded by the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, features classes on subjects such as Lego Robotics and nanotechnology. It also strives to offer students a glimpse into what college life would be like if they were to further pursue a STEM education.
The University of Wisconsin-Marshfield/Wood County hosted a similar STEM summer camp aimed at younger kids. A focus on fun science (such as building and racing Lego vehicles) is in line with the current of education through play. The children involved, some as young as 7, are getting a first glimpse into the processes and procedures involved with taking things apart and putting them back together.
It's important to note that it's not just students receiving special STEM instruction this summer. Teachers in an East St. Louis school district recently took part in a two-week-long workshop to bolster their instruction strategies and pedagogy:
'What STEM promotes is that when you’re teaching the academic skills they need to learn, you’re actually making a connection with them and with the real world so they can see why they need to learn it,' said [2nd grade teacher Mechelle] Howard."
Providing Inspiration
For the California-based children's publishing company Cascade Pass, promoting STEM also means inspiring children who, even in their imaginative early years, can harbor doubts about the breadth of their opportunities. For Judith Love Cohen, who runs the company with her husband David A. Katz, that includes the historical barriers STEM fields have with regard to gender.
(Disclosure: I had the great pleasure of interning at Cascade Pass about a million years ago when I was an undergraduate).
Cohen knows all about glass ceilings because she's lived an entire life shattering them. Her many accomplishments include 40 years as an engineer for Space Technology Laboratories (which later became TRW and then Northrop Grumman), as well as contributions toward the success of Apollo's Lunar Excursion Module and the Hubble Space Telescope user interface. Cohen's impressive career is profiled in this feature in the Culver City Observer.
Now playing the role of author and publisher, Cohen's focus is on encouraging young girls to follow in her footsteps. Cascade Pass' first book was titled, fittingly enough, You Can Be a Woman Engineer. The company has published 28 books in all, eight of them both in English and Spanish. Many of the books are written to encourage girls to pursue careers in STEM and sports.
From Camp Launch in Virginia to Cascade Pass in California, there are folks across the country dedicating themselves to advancing STEM education and helping groom the future professionals who will shape the nation.
How is STEM promoted locally in your hometown? What should we do to encourage more children to take interest in these subjects? And for those of you outside the U.S., how do you feel about the ways in which science, technology, engineering, and mathematics are taught to your country's children?
Read more about summer STEM programs across the country: WHNT (Huntsville, AL), Marshfield News Herald (Marshfield, WI), William & Mary (Williamsburg, VA), and STL American (St. Louis, MO).
Learn more about Judith Love Cohen and Cascade Pass at Culver City Observer
Photo credit: Poznyakov / Shutterstock
U.S. Navy ships
The U.S. Navy controls patents for some futuristic and outlandish technologies, some of which, dubbed "the UFO patents," came to light recently. Of particular note are inventions by the somewhat mysterious Dr. Salvatore Cezar Pais, whose tech claims to be able to "engineer reality." His slate of highly-ambitious, borderline sci-fi designs meant for use by the U.S. government range from gravitational wave generators and compact fusion reactors to next-gen hybrid aerospace-underwater crafts with revolutionary propulsion systems, and beyond.
Of course, the existence of patents does not mean these technologies have actually been created, but there is evidence that some demonstrations of operability have been successfully carried out. As investigated and reported by The War Zone, a possible reason why some of the patents may have been taken on by the Navy is that the Chinese military may also be developing similar advanced gadgets.
Among Dr. Pais's patents are designs, approved in 2018, for an aerospace-underwater craft of incredible speed and maneuverability. This cone-shaped vehicle can potentially fly just as well anywhere it may be, whether air, water or space, without leaving any heat signatures. It can achieve this by creating a quantum vacuum around itself with a very dense polarized energy field. This vacuum would allow it to repel any molecule the craft comes in contact with, no matter the medium. Manipulating "quantum field fluctuations in the local vacuum energy state," would help reduce the craft's inertia. The polarized vacuum would dramatically decrease any elemental resistance and lead to "extreme speeds," claims the paper.
Not only that, if the vacuum-creating technology can be engineered, we'd also be able to "engineer the fabric of our reality at the most fundamental level," states the patent. This would lead to major advancements in aerospace propulsion and generating power. Not to mention other reality-changing outcomes that come to mind.
Among Pais's other patents are inventions that stem from similar thinking, outlining pieces of technology necessary to make his creations come to fruition. His paper presented in 2019, titled "Room Temperature Superconducting System for Use on a Hybrid Aerospace Undersea Craft," proposes a system that can achieve superconductivity at room temperatures. This would become "a highly disruptive technology, capable of a total paradigm change in Science and Technology," conveys Pais.
High frequency gravitational wave generator.
Credit: Dr. Salvatore Pais
Another invention devised by Pais is an electromagnetic field generator that could generate "an impenetrable defensive shield to sea and land as well as space-based military and civilian assets." This shield could protect from threats like anti-ship ballistic missiles, cruise missiles that evade radar, coronal mass ejections, military satellites, and even asteroids.
Dr. Pais's ideas center around the phenomenon he dubbed "The Pais Effect". He referred to it in his writings as the "controlled motion of electrically charged matter (from solid to plasma) via accelerated spin and/or accelerated vibration under rapid (yet smooth) acceleration-deceleration-acceleration transients." In less jargon-heavy terms, Pais claims to have figured out how to spin electromagnetic fields in order to contain a fusion reaction – an accomplishment that would lead to a tremendous change in power consumption and an abundance of energy.
According to his bio in a recently published paper on a new Plasma Compression Fusion Device, which could transform energy production, Dr. Pais is a mechanical and aerospace engineer working at the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD), which is headquartered in Patuxent River, Maryland. Holding a Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, Pais was a NASA Research Fellow and worked with Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems. His current Department of Defense work involves his "advanced knowledge of theory, analysis, and modern experimental and computational methods in aerodynamics, along with an understanding of air-vehicle and missile design, especially in the domain of hypersonic power plant and vehicle design." He also has expert knowledge of electrooptics, emerging quantum technologies (laser power generation in particular), high-energy electromagnetic field generation, and the "breakthrough field of room temperature superconductivity, as related to advanced field propulsion."
Suffice it to say, with such a list of research credentials that would make Nikola Tesla proud, Dr. Pais seems well-positioned to carry out groundbreaking work.
A craft using an inertial mass reduction device.
Credit: Salvatore Pais
The patents won't necessarily lead to these technologies ever seeing the light of day. The research has its share of detractors and nonbelievers among other scientists, who think the amount of energy required for the fields described by Pais and his ideas on electromagnetic propulsions are well beyond the scope of current tech and are nearly impossible. Yet investigators at The War Zone found comments from Navy officials that indicate the inventions are being looked at seriously enough, and some tests are taking place.
If you'd like to read through Pais's patents yourself, check them out here.
Laser Augmented Turbojet Propulsion System
Credit: Dr. Salvatore Pais
