Engineering Team with Lt. Gov. Joe GarciaThe Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences is encouraging high school students from rural areas to consider a future in engineering.

A team of students and professors traveled to Ovid, in the far northeast corner of Colorado, to take part in a special high school ‘Dream Big Day’. Members of the aerospace department helped organize the overall event, which included a dozen organizations and businesses, as well as an appearance by Colorado Lt. Gov. Joe Garcia.

The October event brought in 350 high school students from 12 neighboring school districts, more than doubling Ovid’s population.

The purpose of the day was to promote careers in engineering to rural students who might not otherwise consider them. The CU team made presentations, showed off technology like the department’s CubeSat microsatellites, and answered questions.

“We passed CubeSat hardware around to students to let them know that CU students work on hardware that will fly in space,” says Scott Palo, assistant dean for research.

CU-Boulder professor and former astronaut Jim Voss also took part in the event, as did Eric Frew, director of the Research and Engineering Center for Unmanned Vehicles.

Revere Schools Superintendent Sharon Green says it’s a great event for her students.

“Thank you for giving our rural kids a door to future possibilities,” Green says. “At breakfast the next day, I heard high school boys asking one absentee why he didn’t show up, ‘Dude, you missed an awesome day.’”