On Saturday, April 23, more than 150 Cincinnati-area parents, teachers, middle and high school students, will participate in the 11th annual "Engineer for a Day" program. "Engineer for A Day" is hosted by the Cincinnati Alumni Extension and University of Cincinnati chapters of the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) and sponsored by Toyota Motor Manufacturing North America and the University of Cincinnati College of Engineering. From 8:30 a.m. - 3:30 p.m., students from across the tri-state area will spend their Saturday learning the various functions of engineers.

Black engineers and scientists will be on site from Proctor & Gamble, Toyota, Kroger, Hamilton County Environmental Services, Department of Veteran Affairs, Ethicon Endo-Surgery, and Cintas. They will be accompanied by over 20 University of Cincinnati engineering students as well as Mr. Kenneth Simonson, Director of the Emerging Ethnic Engineers Program.

Among the participants will be middle and high school students in Cincinnati public schools and those from the surrounding suburbs in Ohio and Kentucky. Past attendees have included educators from WEB Dubois Academy, Winton Hills Academy, Woodward Career Tech and Withrow University High school.

Hands-on student activities will include an introduction to physics, flight patterns of several different types of catapults, sail cars, freestanding towers and design exercises. Throughout the day students will take organized tours of the University of Cincinnati campus. The College of Engineering will also sponsor tours and demonstrations at key research laboratories.

Known as the "hidden profession", engineers find the public has difficulty grasping the details of their day-to-day tasks. Therefore, the NSBE members have placed great emphasis on giving each student a brief, but-in-depth perspective on the job of an engineer - using math & science skills to solve practical problems. The members hope to positively affect and increase the statistics of the American Society for Engineering Education which reports that only approximately 5.4% of the Bachelor's degrees in engineering (2001-2002) were African American.

For more information please email Ken Simonson.