STEM Program

An invitation to join the STLE STEM program

Dr. Maureen Hunter | TLT STEM Program December 2016

The society has many avenues to help you get involved.

There is so much more we dream of being able to do to educate young people about the field of tribology and lubrication sciences. (Photo courtesy of Emilia Barquin of King Industries, Inc.)

I’VE COME TO THE CONCLUSION THAT THE REASON I love being STLE’s STEM Ambassador as much as I do is because it’s a license to be a kid again. I tell everybody it’s because I enjoy challenging stereotypes that many young people have about careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). I explain that gaining a fresh perspective for me on everyday work when seen through the eyes of students and helping to make a difference in the lives of underprivileged kids makes it all worthwhile.

Those things are true and compelling, but another significant reason is—well, like it’s been said, girls just want to have fun! And what I enjoy most are the STEM camps. It’s like Halloween and Christmas all rolled up in one fun-filled package. I get to do things I wouldn’t normally do at my age, like racing hot wheels cars and licking lollipops to demonstrate friction, playing with silly putty to explain rheology and wearing costumes to look like a mad scientist or Merlin the Magician.

So I’m inviting all STLE members, especially section leaders and corporate members, to join our STEM program. There are so many ways to become involved.

Attend the STEM meeting in Atlanta in May 2017. I invite you to meet with the STEM Advisory Committee this May at STLE’s 72nd Annual Meeting & Exhibition at the Hyatt Regency in Atlanta, Georgia. We’ll discuss ideas on how to help you organize a STEM program. We’ll share experimental write-ups and resource articles about STEM activities on both the national and local levels. We’ll share interesting feedback from STLE sections and member companies on how to hold successful STEM camps. The Canton Section with The Timken Corp., the Philadelphia Section with Quaker Chemical and the Detroit Section with Cass Technical High School have built strong models for local sections, so come and hear about their success stories. Organizing and hosting a STEM camp is a fun way to create new enthusiasm or even restart activity in your local section.

Participate in the 5th Annual STEM Camp in Atlanta. I also invite you to submit new ideas for hands-on experiments for our 5th Annual Tribology STEM Camp at STLE’s 72nd Annual Meeting & Exhibition in Atlanta on May 22. The goal of this camp is to expose high school students to careers in tribology and lubrication engineering. It’s always inspiring and is one of my favorite events at the annual meeting.

We’re always looking for hands-on experiments lasting between 15-20 minutes that are safe for students to run and, most important, are fun activities that will help students understand the principles of friction, wear and lubrication. We’re also asking for donated supplies and volunteers to help conduct the experiments. Any ideas and/or write-ups of experiments would be greatly appreciated.

Help us reach our goal to create Tribo-kits. We are so grateful to ExxonMobil Corp. for two generous financial gifts that have made our annual meeting STEM camps, the E. Richard Booser Scholarship and the E. Elmer Klaus Fellowship possible. There is so much more we dream of being able to do to educate young people about the field of tribology and lubrication sciences. In particular, we would like to create and supply Tribo-kits consisting of sets of dynamic, interactive, hands-on experiments to high school, middle school and elementary school students.

We hope to accomplish this dream of making Tribo-kits available with the help of ASM International, the world’s largest engineering and scientific society focused on advancing STEM education. Help us to reach our goal to supply Tribo-kits to teachers’ camps for them to take back to their own science classes. Our hopes are to make these kits available to local STLE local sections for their use at STEM camps across the country and eventually the world. But we need the funds to design and build the Tribo-kits. So I invite you to make a donation.

Why join STLE’s STEM program and become involved at both the national and local levels? Because you can make all the difference in the life of a student. Help us to open the doors to a world of possibilities for these young people. Trust me when I tell you, it’s fun!

Maureen Hunter is an STLE past president and currently serves as the society’s STEM Ambassador. She is the technical service manager for King Industries, Inc., in Norwalk, Conn. You can reach her at mhunter@kingindustries.com.