The SUU Youth Engineering Academy (SUU YEA), a K-12 outreach program sponsored by BZI and organized within the SUU College of Engineering and Computational Sciences, introduces kids from kindergarten to 12th grade to engineering and computational sciences through hands-on, interactive experiences. SUU YEA actively breaks down barriers related to gender, race, and income, empowering all students to recognize their potential for pursuing careers in engineering fields.
SUU YEA has four main goals for all attendees:
- Safety: The physical and digital safety of all attendees is the highest priority.
- Fun: If the kids are having fun at the camp, they will have a more positive memory of what they learn, of engineering in general, and of SUU.
- Learning: Although we are not trying to make computer programmers or engineers out of every child who attends the program, we want them to at least know what the field entails.
- Experience: All camps are run on Suu’s campus, so the students will get a small glimpse into college life and how it differs from their K12 experience.
The camps are taught by trained teachers, most of whom have K12 credentials, who have extensive experience working with children. The teachers will have SUU students as teaching assistants to help them in the classroom and maintain an overall ratio of 1:8 for teachers to students. All teachers and teaching assistants undergo training in classroom management and the specific topics they are teaching, are provided formalized curriculum, and will have passed background checks.
SUU YEA will run on campus at SUU, so the attendees will be exposed to life as a college student. The camps will be in classrooms and lab spaces used by college classes. They will walk around campus to see the different buildings and learn about other majors at the university, as well as enjoy experiencing Thunderbird Eats, the cafeteria, at least one day during the camp.
