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Science Extravaganza brings STEM fields, marshmallows together at The Beach

Students from all over Long Beach descended upon campus Friday to take part in the fifth annual Science Extravaganza that included workshops and competitions at the lawn near the Outpost Grill.

A collaborative effort between Cal State Long Beach and MAES: Latinos in Science and Engineering, the event aims to use a day full of hands-on science, technology, engineering and math-based workshops and laboratory experiments to engage middle school students in the STEM fields.

Daan Leiva, a junior physics and mechanical engineering double major and a co-chair in charge of coordinating the Science Extravaganza, said he believes the event can help push young students to pursue higher education.

“Our main goal is to outreach to kids that come from underprivileged areas because a lot of those kids don’t see college as an option,” he said. “They think that higher education is just too hard or that math is boring or that engineering is just for people who are really smart. We want to show them that it can be fun and enjoyable and that they too can have access to it.

At the event included competitions among attendees, and the main competition challenged students to build the highest freestanding structure possible using only uncooked spaghetti and marshmallows. First-place winners received a medal.

Brandon Kawata, a senior physics major who volunteered at the event, said that experiencing the workshops and competition firsthand is vital to getting kids interested in science.

“I think a day like today is very helpful to the kids because it gives them some hands-on experience with science and getting to see it instead of just reading it in a textbook,” he said. “They get to actually experience it.”

At the event, students also heard from keynote speaker Jesus Perez, a graduate of MIT and Stanford who enlisted in the Navy and became a systems engineer at Raytheon Company, an American defense contractor.

Perez encouraged the kids in attendance to work hard in order to achieve their dreams and explained his work to the middle school students.

“I’m a mechanical engineer; so, basically, I fix really big engines that are probably bigger than your dad’s biggest truck,” he said, drawing more than a few wide-eyed “oohs” and “ahs” from the audience.

Carlos Huerta, a senior civil engineering major and co-president of the MAES chapter at CSULB, said that getting students interested in science and engineering can be a challenge at times.

“We bring middle school kids to this event because we feel that they are easier to target,” Huerta said. “If we can get at least a few of these kids to take a genuine interest in these fields of study, then we feel like they will take high school more seriously and possibly pursue them in college.”

Daisy Balcazar, a freshman mechanical engineering major who volunteered at the event, said she believes she is living proof that events such as these can influence and guide young students.

“I didn’t know about engineering in high school,” she said. “I was involved with a similar program called MESA (Mathematics Engineering Science Achievement) in high school, and that really opened my eyes to the world of engineering because I enjoyed math and science.”

The Science Extravaganza was financed through school grants, national grants, the Navy and through other donations, Leiva said.

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