Twelve years. That’s how long members of the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division workforce have been volunteering to participate in Burroughs High School’s annual Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Day. This year’s event took place March 16 and welcomed 12 presenting teams from China Lake.
“This school has fantastic facilities for engineering and I think it’s nice to show them how these classes that they are taking can relate to actual jobs and things that they can do, especially jobs that we have right here in town,” said Meghan Baronowski, whose team presented a materials engineering demonstration. “As a student in high school, I knew about engineers, but I didn’t know what they did and what kind of jobs they could have, so being able to expose them, even just a little bit, I think opens a whole lot of doors.”
Students made ice cream during chemistry demonstrations, tracked flying tennis balls using Kinteto Tracking Mount technology, saw a 2D representation of the displaced air caused by heat and much more.
“The students have really enjoyed the demonstrations,” said Derrick Zhang, a Burroughs chemistry teacher. “While there are some opportunities for young students to come to the base, there aren’t many chances to have those demonstrations and workshops brought out to the high school, so it’s a big deal for them and they really look forward to it.”