Media Advisory
Thursday, August 26, 2010; 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Prospective engineers smokin’ hot Cheetos, designing cardboard boats, more
70 6th- through 8th-graders at Cal State L.A. Thursday
to explore engineering via IMPACT LA summer camp
Note to editors and news directors: More than 70 6th- through 8th-graders from throughout Los Angeles will participate Thursday, Aug. 26, in the IMPACT LA Summer Camp at Cal State L.A. Coordinated by CSULA engineering graduate students, the camp is designed to “impact” the middle-school students by helping them see themselves as future engineers.
The campers will tour the University’s engineering labs and engage in fun-filled engineering-related projects, such as racing cardboard-designed boats, smoking hot Cheetos, building popsicle stick towers, and constructing a miniature car using Lifesaver candies, straws and balloons.
IMPACT LA stands for Improving Minority Partnerships and Access through CISE*-related Teaching (*CISE refers to “Computer and Information Science and Engineering”). Funded by a five-year, $3 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the program pairs college graduate students and local K-12 math or science teachers. For more about IMPACT LA, go to http://impactla.calstatela.edu.
Reporters are welcome to join the tour and observe the activities from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Organizers, teachers and students will be available for photos and interviews. To make arrangements, call the Public Affairs office at Cal State L.A., 323-343-3050.
The general schedule (groups of students will rotate through each activity):
9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Thursday, Aug. 26.
9 a.m. – Welcome and tour at Engineering and Technology (E&T) patio
9:30 to 11:30 a.m. – Hands-on activities with “sweet” rides (E&T B107) and ink chromatography (E&T B108)
11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. – Lunch and smoking hot Cheetos demonstration (E&T patio)
12:30 to 2:30 p.m. – Hands-on activities with plastic milk (E&T B11) and popsicle stick tower (E&T C249-51)
2:30 to 3:30 p.m. – Cardboard boat design activity begins at 1:30 p.m., followed by the boat race in the campus pool at 3:30 p.m.
Cal State L.A. is located at the intersection of the 10 and 710 freeway. For campus map and directions, go to /univ/maps/cslamap.php.
# # #
Working for California since 1947: The 175-acre hilltop campus of California State University, Los Angeles is at the heart of a major metropolitan city, just five miles from Los Angeles’ civic and cultural center. More than 20,000 students and 215,000 alumni—with a wide variety of interests, ages and backgrounds—reflect the city’s dynamic mix of populations. Six Colleges offer nationally recognized science, arts, business, criminal justice, engineering, nursing, education and humanities programs, among others, led by an award-winning faculty. Cal State L.A. is home to the critically-acclaimed Luckman Jazz Orchestra and to a unique university center for gifted students as young as 12. Programs that provide exciting enrichment opportunities to students and community include an NEH- and Rockefeller-supported humanities center; a NASA-funded center for space research; and a growing forensic science program, housed in the Hertzberg-Davis Forensic Science Center. www.calstatela.edu