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Motorola Foundation awards grants to engineering college K-12 outreach programs

By Laura Seeley
College of Engineering

The College of Engineering will receive two Innovation Generation Grants totaling $95,000 from the Motorola Foundation to assist youth in learning about microsystems and energy and the environment.

The Motorola Foundation’s Innovation Generation Grants were created in early 2007 to fund education programs that spark a love of science, technology, engineering and math in today’s youth.

Two programs in the College of Engineering will be supported by the grants:

• Wireless Integrated MicroSystems for Teens (WIMS for Teens) will receive $50,000.

• The Youth in Energy and Environment Humanitarian Project will receive $45,000.

WIMS for Teens is a two-week summer residential program for seventh- to ninth-graders, designed to hone the skills of students who may choose careers in science, math and engineering fields, specifically in Wireless Integrated MicroSystems.
Microsystems are very small information-gathering nodes that gather data from the environment, interpret it and wirelessly communicate it through local or global information networks. They blend low-power embedded computing with sensing and wireless interfaces to tackle problems in the health care, energy and defense fields.

The course is offered through the National Science Foundation-funded Engineering Research Center for Wireless Integrated MicroSystems, a partnership among the University of Michigan, MSU and Michigan Technological University. More than 1,000 students – many of them girls and minorities – have enrolled in more than 40 short courses since the center was created in September 2000.

The Youth in Energy and Environment Humanitarian program involves third- to sixth-graders in a design project for the Department of Mechanical Engineering’s capstone course about energy and the environment.

MSU students already are working with fifth- and sixth-graders at Lansing’s Woodcreek Magnet School to develop a solar-heated worm bin. For several years, the school has used a worm-based compost approach for disposing of lunch waste. But in winter, the worms hibernate and the composting stops. A solar heating system would heat the compost pile and keep the worms active.

The grant will provide funding for equipment and supplies and will enable the class to travel to MSU to attend the College of Engineering’s Design Day.

“The Motorola Innovation Generation Grants could not have come at a better time,” said Drew Kim, assistant to the dean for recruitment and K-12 outreach in the College of Engineering. “This Motorola grant allows us to double the current capacity and expand our WIMS for Teens program from one week to two weeks. This grant also allows us to employ more engineering students to mentor these young people and be good role models for them.”

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, jobs requiring science, engineering or technical training will increase by 24 percent to 6.3 million between 2004 and 2014, creating greater demand for critical thinkers fluent in technology.

“Studies have indicated that we can make the most impact at the middle school level if we can partner with corporations like Motorola, collaborate with the science, math and technology teachers in our schools and provide hands-on interactive activities to teach math, science and engineering,” Kim said.

Eileen Sweeney, director of the Motorola Foundation, said, “All of us at Motorola are advocates for education and applaud the work that MSU is doing to ignite an interest in science, math and engineering at an early age, particularly for girls and the underserved.”

For a complete list of the 106 Innovation Generation Grant recipients, visit: www.motorola.com/giving