In the Fall 2024 – Spring 2025 academic year (Sep-Mar), the Center for STEM Education hosted a total of 15 field trips, with a total of ~725 students in grades 3-8. Over 75 NEU students and six student groups assisted us with field trips this year.
Of these 15 field trips, 2 schools were from Milton, MA. These field trips are hosted in partnership with NEU Professor Eno Ebong, in the Chemical- and Bio- Engineering departments, as part of her NSF Career Award: EMBRACE STEM. Thank you professor Ebong for making these field trips possible!
January 24th, 2025: 25 students in grade 8 from the Pierce Middle School
On this day, we learned about the engineering design process via Civil and Environmental Engineering design activities. We started the day with a writing activity: coming up with disaster plans/emergency kits – and how we can address vulnerable populations during natural disasters. We then designed, built, and improved portable levees – levee designs modeled after East Boston’s Coastal Resilience Plan (a re-usable, wheeled, mobile levee). The day ended with a campus tour and a visit to Eno Ebong’s lab on campus. Thank you to the 7 undergraduate students who helped volunteer to make this day possible.
February 28th, 2025: 64 students in grades 6-7 from St. Agatha School
This day the Center for STEM Education partnered with Northeastern’s chapter of IEEE, who provided volunteers to help run this day. Due to room issue, we started this day with a campus tour (as opposed to the usual ending the day with a tour) – and each group had a chance to visit Professor Eebong’s lab and talk with her graduate students. Our first activity was hurricane proof towers: half of the class created towers to resist storm surge (using marbles through a paper towel tube), the other half created towers to resist high winds (using a small nerf gun) – then students swapped and tried the other design challenge. After lunch and a college 101 panel, students designed and built portable levees – seeing how long their design could resist the relentless flow of water.
