ECOB Supported Educational Program
The local Birmingham chapter of the Alabama Society of Professional
Engineers will hosts the MATHCOUNTS competition each year.
Registered math team coaches and teachers should plan to provide at least one
(1) test proctor per math team. A team registration form was forwarded and should be
returned via e-mail, fax or phone prior to the competition.
At the conclusion of this event the Top four (4) Teams and the top scoring
individuals will be invited to the State Competition held in various locations
around Alabama. The State team will be comprised
of the top 4 scoring individuals and will travel to a national location to compete with
students from across the USA and US Territories.
Good Luck to each of you and your students. Please feel free to contact me
should you have any questions.
Sincerely Yours,
Signed -J.C. Vance III
205/ 992-7733
Cahaba
Girl Scout Council’s Math and Science Fair:
On March 10, 2007, Cahaba Girl Scout Council Science and Num3ers
Fair will be held at McWane.
The emphasis of this program is to encourage girls in the areas of math and
science and to provide them an environment that they can try different
hands-on science and math activities and see some of the career options in
these areas. For more info contact Michelle Ballew at michelle@christycobb.com
or call 933-1080.
History: The response to the fair has been tremendous over many years. It has grown from
an attendance of 200 eight years ago to an attendance of over 500 for the past
three years. Some pictures from previous fairs are attached.
Liz Philpot of APCO got help from SWE with this activity. Liz Philpot headed up the Fair for five
years and during that time several SWE members including Brigette Wilson,
Michelle Ballew, Mary Crisp, Christy George, Carnetta Davis, and Sandy Wood
helped me faithfully with this adventure. Because of the time commitments
required to plan this event, She decided to hand it off to another person. After
two years, she was asked and agreed to head up the Fair again and
bring the focus of the Fair back to its original intent - to provide the girls
with hands on experiences and career explorations.
Most of the activities of the past two fairs have been directed by older
girls (7th grade and older) rather than by adult volunteers. The biggest
complaint by leaders attending these Fairs was that the older girls could not
explain the principles going on in these hands-on science activities. However,
staffing the Fair with older girls overcame the problem of finding adult
volunteers. One solution may be to match a mentor, an adult volunteer, with an
older girl troop, and the mentor helping the troop work on an experiment that
the younger girls could do and the older girls could explain. In addition, it
would accomplish one of my goals of introducing to the older girls a career
option available to them.
The other ways to help are...
1. Sponsor an activity by either planning, providing the supplies and/or
volunteers for the activity (Costs for the activity depends on the supplies
required. Some activities such as blowing up balloons with baking soda and
vinegar would require the purchase of a large number of balloons, several
pounds of baking soda and several gallons of vinegar or approximately $75.) 2.
Advertise at your companies the need for adult volunteers for this event.
(Flyers can be made available.) 3. Provide items with your companies' logos to
give to the girls such as pencils, paper, pens, rulers, hats, etc. (I want to
advertise local companies who hire women with math, science, and engineering
degrees.) 4. Provide food items for the girls and/or volunteers.
Thank you so much for your support over the years.
UAB Engineering Open
House:
Each Year the Societies of ECOB Participate in
an open house. The exposition consists of tours through the departments
for the general public and local high schools introducing Engineering to them
in a University environment. The student societies put on a competition
between themselves to display their departments wares by putting on skits,
experiments and displays.
Discover E:
Volunteer engineers go into classrooms around
the country to educate students about engineering, math and science. Founded
by the National Society of Professional Engineers. Using teaching materials,
videos, handout materials and real life experiences, engineers select schools
in their local area and arrange to visit individual classrooms where they
demonstrate simple scientific principles, lead teaching projects and
participate in other educational activities. Each program and activity is
designed to help students discover the excitement of engineering and show how
their math and science studies relate to the world around them.
