ELEMENTARY SCHOOL DAY - Tuesday February 18, 2020
The American Society of Civil Engineers Los Angeles Younger Member Forum (ASCE LA YMF) and the City of Los Angeles kicked off Engineers Week 2020 by hosting Elementary School Day at Los Angeles City hall. Elementary School Day is the first event in our 5-day Engineers Week Celebration. Led by Joan Hsu of Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT), ASCE LA YMF was able to invite over 130 students for a day of engineering fun and activities. We hosted students from Glenwood Elementary School (CD2), Angeles Mesa STEAM Elementary (CD8), Palms Elementary (CD5), Los Feliz STEM Magnet (CD4), and Haddon Avenue STEAM Academy (CD7). Many of these students come from disadvantaged communities, low income, and title 1 LAUSD schools throughout the City of Los Angeles and were selected through their Council District Office.
As the students arrived at city hall, they were greeted with our amazing team of volunteers and each student got an Engineers Week T-shirt and were given snacks for the day. The students were then escorted into the City of Los Angeles Council Chambers where they sat in front of all Council members. For many, this is the first time they have ever visited City Hall and it was an exhilarating experience for them. All the students were then recognized by Councilmember Paul Krekorian as he stated, “They’ve come to celebrate Engineers Week with us. As you can see, they came prepared with their hard-hats to get to work and to learn about what engineers do and how important engineering is to every function that City government has, whether it’s providing roads that we drive on, safe parks to play in, libraries to learn in, electricity and water that comes to our homes; all of that is done by engineers! And I’m so pleased that you could all be here with us today so you could learn more about that, and hopefully some of you will be the engineers that this city counts on in the future to build the city of tomorrow. So thank you all very much for being here.”
With each and every proclamation from the council members, the students stood up and cheered to represent their school. They waved their engineering hard hats in the air and were filled with joy as each council member recognized the students for participating in Engineers Week 2020.
From then, the volunteers escorted the students on an engineering tour of City Hall and each school had the opportunity to visit their council member’s office, learn about the engineering features of the building, and even got to stop by the Mayor’s Office. Once the tours had finished, it was time for the Engineers Week main event. Weeks prior to the city hall visits, ASCE visited each school to help the students with their engineering projects. The students had a challenge to build an egg drop container that could withstand the fall off of the two-story high City Hall Rotunda. In order to build a well-engineered device, the students were only allowed to use everyday household items such as plates, napkins, straws, toothpicks, tape, and cotton balls. The students have been working hard for weeks to prepare their egg drop devices and now had the opportunity to test their designs. The students gathered in the City Hall rotunda and cheered on other students as they dropped their engineered egg devices off the ledge and onto the ground. The room filled with cheers and roars as our volunteers opened their devices to find out whether or not the egg had survived. Overall, it was a great learning experience for the students and they all loved the event.
We would like to give special thanks to the City of Los Angeles and to all of the Council Districts that supported Engineers Week 2020. Lastly, we would like to thank our Engineers Week Chair, Meghrie Demirdjian of LADWP for being the amazing lead for Engineers Week 2020.
