The Wyoming Union filled with kids eager to see water vortexes and dry ice bubbles as a part of the Wyoming State Science Fair.
Ryan Goodrich, a 7th grader from Pinedale, said that the fair is good for showing kids that science can be done in more fun and interesting ways. He said he enjoyed the Lego demo put on by the university because he was able to learn about coding and technology.
Nicole Clayton, secondary science teacher from Torrington High School, said that this event is really great advertising for the University of Wyoming. Her students all told her that they were more likely to attend UW for science or engineering after seeing the demonstrations put on by UW.
Ryan Kobbe, faculty advisor to the exploring engineering group, said that he wanted to get students interested in science by doing fun and eye-catching experiments.
“It’s important to expose young people to science earlier rather than later,” Kobbe said. “In my case I never heard about science or engineering or any of the cool things about the things that I was learning in high school, until I came to college. If I had some sort of context I would have seen school as more fun than a necessary evil.”
Kobbe said that young people think about what they want to do with their futures way too late.
“Really our goal by exposing these kids to science and engineering principles early is to avoid the, hey what do you want to do when you grow up when they’re juniors in high school,” Kobbe said.
