Chats With Change Makers is an exciting new interview series aimed at engaging middle school students in engineering. Hosted by Tiffany, a 10th grader from Austin, Texas and a Future City alum, she’ll be chatting the 3rd Friday of every month with different engineers and technicians. At the end of each chat, that session’s guest will challenge viewers to try out a new DiscoverE engineering activity.

DiscoverE engineers share a common desire: to help grade school and high school students discover the exciting worlds of engineering and technology. Their goal is to relate practical applications of math, science, and engineering to the world around them. The information in this DiscoverE section will help you plan activities for Engineers Week or anytime you work with students. The Engineers Week Committee encourages you to continue your partnership with local schools throughout the year.

Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day (Girl Day) helps focus a growing movement to inspire girls’ futures so they learn they have a place in engineering a better world. In just one day you can make a difference by sharing your knowledge, experience, and some fun! Give girls the chance to think like an engineer and you’ll be amazed at what you learn!

The DiscoverE Persist Series (formerly the Global Marathon) is a worldwide speaker series building staying power for women in engineering and tech. Each second Wednesday of the month, join thousands of women around the world to hear inspiring stories and candidly discuss topics like inclusive workplace cultures, being an active bystander to casual bias, and developing a growth mindset.

An international day with celebrations across the world is an opportunity to increase the profile of engineering. The Day is also an opportunity to engage with government and industry to address the need for engineering capacity and the quality of engineers around the world and develop strategic frameworks and best practices for the implementation of engineering solutions for sustainable development. The celebration of World Engineering Day is also about promoting engineering as a career and how it is an opportunity to change the world for better.

Future City asks middle-school students to imagine, design, and build cities of the future. After four months of designing a virtual city (using SimCity), researching, designing, and writing up their solution to a city-wide issue and building a scale model of their city, teams will present their vision to a panel of judges. After the competition is over, student participants are not only prepared to be citizens of today’s complex and technical world, they are poised to become the drivers of tomorrow.