How successful have STEM efforts been over the past year?
We have taken a multifaceted approach to STEM outreach in the past year.
We began by developing a strategy that addressed the importance of STEM and the challenges the nation and the Corps face: recruit, develop, and retain our STEM workforce; collaborate to maximize our strengths and to achieve mutual objectives; and leverage our brilliant STEM talent to make a difference.
Our goal is to utilize our national STEM outreach/recruitment program to seek the best and the brightest and to deepen the diversity talent pool.
Our biggest effort so far is a partnership agreement we established with the Department of Defense Education Activity [DODEA] in May 2013 to leverage our district-level scientists and engineers to benefit military families. This one-of-a-kind partnership resulted in a USACE-specific STEM outreach program, STEM ed, which advances STEM education in communities where DODEA and USACE activities are co-located. The DODEA-funded effort enhances their STEM curricula; supports their teachers with implementing engineering and design into the STEM curricula; increases student awareness and interest in STEM activities, projects, and career opportunities; and shares the Corps’ mission with the local community. STEM ed benefits families by leveraging the expertise and capabilities of USACE volunteers to engage students in real-world connections between the curriculum and the work of STEM professionals.
Kevin Bjella, research civil engineer with ERDC’s Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, leads Lt. Gen. Thomas P. Bostick, commanding general of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, on a tour of the permafrost tunnel Aug. 14, 2014, near Fairbanks, Alaska. The tunnel was excavated from 1963-1969 to study permafrost, geology, ice science, mining, and construction techniques specific to permafrost environments. The facility offers a unique environment more than 40,000 years old for scientists and engineers to study. Bostick stopped to learn more about permafrost and ongoing research at the facility. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Alaska District photo
I had the opportunity to visit one of these DODEA schools at Fort Knox, Kentucky, where members of our Louisville District are conducting the STEM ed program – it was great to see the enthusiasm that the students and the volunteers have for engineering!
We continue to contribute to the STEM challenge through more focused efforts at the college and university level, specifically with historically black colleges and universities and minority-serving institutions. Our districts and centers, such as the Engineer Research and Development Center [ERDC], have partnership agreements with about 90 engineer-producing colleges and universities, including North Carolina A&T State University, California Institute of Technology, George Mason University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Morgan State University, and Tuskegee University. These agreements involve collaborating in research of mutual interest, encouraging students to pursue internship opportunities, and providing USACE mentors for classrooms.
In May 2014, Lt. Gen. Thomas P. Bostick, USACE commanding general and chief of engineers, participated in a joint Reserve Officers’ TrainingCorps, or ROTC, commissioning ceremony at Tuskegee University in Alabama. Tuskegee University is among nearly 100 engineer-producing colleges and universities that collaborate with USACE’s districts and centers to encourage students to pursue STEM advancement opportunities such as internships. Photo courtesy Tuskegee University, Chris Renegar
ERDC, which is at the forefront of developing technologies to support our nation and warfighters, engages about 7,000 students and 500 teachers annually through their STEM partnerships and outreach efforts. We continue to review and strengthen existing higher education partnerships where there is maximum benefit. Our goal is to utilize our national STEM outreach/recruitment program to seek the best and the brightest and to deepen the diversity talent pool.
We have also made progress on the uniformed side of the Engineer Regiment with diversity. For example, in 2013, only two African-Americans were commissioned into the Corps of Engineers branch from West Point. With a focused effort by West Point, the U.S. Army Engineer School, USACE, and many others, seven African-Americans branched [into the] Corps of Engineers only a year later. We are pursuing ROTC [Reserve Officers’ Training Corps] success as well. We are working all facets of diversity to meet our military and civilian requirements.
This year USACE loaned a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton to the Smithsonian Institution. How did the Army Corps of Engineers acquire the specimen and how did that event tie into your STEM goals?
During the Great Depression, FDR [Franklin D. Roosevelt] wanted to put America back to work with the New Deal, and that led to a number of infrastructure projects like the Fort Peck Dam. Many of those projects are still in operation today and include recreation areas just like the one that Kathy Wankel and her family were visiting when they discovered the T. rex specimen. Federal laws require the preservation of antiquities on all public lands, including our Corps projects, and thus the preservation of the Wankel T. rex is the responsibility of the Corps.
On April 15, 2014, the National Museum of Natural History took delivery of the nation’s T. rex at the Smithsonian Institution. On hand for the occasion were, pictured from left to right, Kirk Johnson, Ph.D., Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History director; Kathy and Tom Wankel, the individuals who discovered the T. rex in Montana in 1988; and Lt. Gen. Thomas P. Bostick, chief of engineers and commanding general, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The Tyrannosaurus rex specimen, on loan for 50 years from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, is the museum’s first nearly complete T. rex skeleton, and will be the centerpiece of the museum’s renovated fossil hall slated to open in 2019. Photo by James Di Loreto, Smithsonian Institution
We are proud to participate in protecting and preserving the nation’s paleontological resources by maintaining state-of-the-art expertise in natural resource and heritage assets in support of U.S. government agencies. In April of this year, we loaned the T. rex to the Smithsonian for the next 50 years, where it will be on display for millions of visitors. We take our stewardship responsibility – of lands, waters, and the artifacts they may conceal – seriously, and we are honored to have helped bring the nation’s T. rex to the nation’s capital, where it will help inspire future generations of scientists.
U.S. Army ERDC activities cover four mission areas: Military Engineering (ME), Geospatial Research and Engineering, Environmental Quality and Installations, and Civil Works and Water Resources. Approximately 80 percent of ERDC’s research and development budget is directed toward Military Engineering – specifically warfighter support. What are some of the ME technologies under development or recently developed?
Emerging threats and evolving operational requirements necessitate new technologies and approaches for protecting warfighters and critical assets. Thus, ERDC continues to advance development of its Modular Protective System [MPS], a modular, scalable set of panels and frames that can be tailored to the asset and threat. The MPS is a protection solution for scenarios where earthen-filled revetments are not viable due to lack of construction equipment, soil, manpower, or time. It can be configured with overhead cover protection, for construction of guard towers and mortar pits, and for retrofits to existing structures.