Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Legacy Management outreach staff and more than 2,000 people attended the National American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES) Conference, which featured over 250 exhibitors and 40 sessions.

Five federal representatives from the Office of Legacy Management (LM) travelled from Grand Junction, Colorado, to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, from October 10-12, 2019, to attend and present at the AISES Conference.

The conference, a three-day event with additional special activities before and after the main conference, is the largest American Indian college and career fair that focuses on educational, professional, and workforce development among American indigenous students.

LM staff Ken Kreie, William Frasier, Bernadette Tsosie, Angelita Denny, and Shawn Montgomery arrived early to participate in the STEM Activity Day on October 9. The event, which was sponsored by Boeing, featured hands-on activities for pre-college students and educators; around 150 participants attended the event.

LM hosted one of the most popular activities, which allowed students to build their own rocket balloons and test them in order to optimize how far the rockets would travel. Four types of string were spread out over a distance of about 75 feet. Students attached balloons to a straw on one of the four strings. Air in the balloons would then act as a propellant to launch the rocket (the balloon and straw) along the string. Students engaged in a short discussion on physics, including Newton’s Laws of Motion, encouraging them to design their rocket.

This seems like just a fun and simple activity, but it encourages students to consider things such as drag, friction, propulsion, and aerodynamics, in order to solve the problem of sending their rockets the farthest. Before they know it, students are iterating changes on their rockets to solve a problem, all while having fun — and that’s what we want. We want to show students that careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics are about testing and solving problems.