Awards & RecognitionChemical engineering professor impresses national engineering education organization

National organization recognizes student's achievments

Faculty member recognized for dedication to students

Boeing—the world’s leading aerospace company—selects BCoE aerospace professor for Boeing Welliver Faculty Fellowship Program

BCoE & MSU Quick LinkBagley College of Engineering

Mississippi State University

Alumni Foundation

Giving

Special Podcast Release    "Science Guy" visits MSU
Thanks to his energetic performances on television, Bill Nye is known to most as the “Science Guy,” but during a recent visit to MSU he reveled his other passions. Nye is a strong supporter of science education because he knows the future of our world will soon be in the hands of today’s children. While visiting campus, he also took the time to discuss hybrid vehicles with members of the BCoE’s national champion Challenge X team. Nye was given the opportunity to drive the vehicle and inspect the students’ craftsmanship while examining the inner-workings of the car.
Click here to listen.

Momentum Preview    Click here to download and see Momentum before it goes out in the mail. Hard copies will be arriving in your mailboxes later this May.

Straight from the minds of young scientists

Standing side-by-side with their colorful, tri-panel posters, thousands of elementary students were showing off their science projects in the halls and the auditorium floor of Humphrey Coliseum. Every year the Bagley College of Engineering (BCoE) sponsors the Region V Mississippi Science and Engineering Fair. Donna Reese, an associate dean for the BCoE, oversees the K-12 Outreach Program team that spends a year putting the event together.

“It is very important for young people to get exposed to the fun they can have with math and science experiments at an earlier age. These positive experiences encourage them to continue to pursue their interests throughout their grade and high school years,” said Reese. “The natural progression, we hope, is for these students to pursue engineering as a possible major in college. But, even if they don’t, there are a lot of fun things that go on in science, and having a well-rounded education for students is very important. So, we’ve always sponsored this event and will continue to sponsor it.”

Darvin Griffin, a senior biological engineering major, is helping Reese’s team judge the science fair. “They’re doing an exceptionally good job compared to my fourth grade year when I created a project for my science fair.”

Griffin’s grade school science fair experiences have had a very positive affect on his college career. He is one of those students who carried his interest and love of science forward into the field of engineering. Griffin credits his grade and high school teachers for having the insight to lay the foundation of having fun with science, leading to his successful educational experiences at the higher educational level. Recently, the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) named Griffin a Fulfilling the Legacy Scholar. The honor includes a full scholarship to any graduate school of Griffin’s choice.

Having worked hard for all his accolades, Griffin respects the time and dedication students put into each project. As he introduces himself to Cody Prewitt, a fourth-grader from Ward Stuart Elementary, Griffin inspects Prewitt’s water conservation project called, “Every Drop Counts.” He evaluates Prewitt’s experiment based on creativity, engineering goals and the overall knowledge the student demonstrates about math and science.

The fourth-grader’s voice nervously cracked a little as he began to present the project to Griffin, “My purpose was to see how much water people could save by turning the water off and on when brushing their teeth.”

Griffin asked, “How did you think of this idea for your experiment?”

Prewitt paused and thought about the question for a minute, and then his face suddenly lit up as he enthusiastically replied, “My friends in Atlanta, Ga., are conserving water because they are having a big drought. They are really concerned about having enough drinking water this summer. They have a big lake north of Atlanta that is drying up because there hasn’t been enough rain. So, I wanted to do this project on water conservation to keep Mississippians safe.”

As Griffin smiled and took notes it was obvious that this college senior thoroughly enjoyed interacting with the grade school students. His demeanor with the students erased any former intimidation they may have had, and they freely began sharing the results of the science projects and described how they discovered the actual answers.

“This is a great way to give them hands-on knowledge of how to go through a design process and make them think,” offered Griffin. “Sometimes in a classroom the experiments may be too planned and the results are too expected. It’s good for them to see that the real world doesn’t always work that way.”

Prewitt courteously waited for Griffin to finish writing his notes before he added, “What I was thinking was saving water as a natural resource. My conclusion was that if the whole city of Starkville would practice turning off the water while they brush their teeth, they could save around 64 million gallons of water and about $200,000. That’s a lot of water going down the drain.”

Griffin replied, “Very interesting. Very interesting.”

The fourth-grader now more than ever was eager to please and wanted to impress Griffen, “Yeah, I want to be a civil environmental engineer or a dentist when I get older.”

Griffin offered his acceptance and later that day at the award ceremonies, Cody Prewitt was well on his way to fulfilling his future dreams. His water conservation project, “Every Drop Counts,” won the overall Region V Class Two Best of Fair award and will advance to state competition.

By: Diane Godwin