Recently, engineers from Pare Corporation volunteered at the Providence Children’s Museum alongside the ASCE Rhode Island Section Younger Member Group as part of National Engineer’s Week. The event, conducted annually by the ASCE Younger Member Group, introduces children to different aspects of civil engineering through a set of activity stations. Children visit each station and are awarded stickers toward their “junior engineer certificates.” Over 120 kids participated at this year’s event, held on February 22nd.

Mark Dowdell and Shane Driscoll presented water filtration to the children, demonstrating how sponges and coffee filters can remove solids from water, much like a more sophisticated water filtration system.

Mark Dowdell explains the experiment.

Mark Dowdell and a Future Engineer Perform the Demonstration

Shane Driscoll Performs Another Demonstration…

…to Amazing Results!

Eric Silva ran the geotechnical station, demonstrating how settlement can differ in various types of soil, from sand to potting soil.

Eric Silva Preparing a Geotechnical Demonstration

Other stations demonstrated building construction using marshmallows and toothpicks, bridge construction using cardboard, and how stormwater (or rain) runoff can create erosion problems around riverbanks.

– Written by Shane Driscoll