Every age group has different needs, expectations, and abilities. While junior and senior high school students have reasonable attention spans and have had some preparation in math and science that will help them relate to your presentation, holding the interest of students in sixth grade and below requires a bit more simplification and hands-on activity. Lower elementary students are learning concepts and becoming independent learners.

The National Engineers Week Committee encourages you to reach out to younger students. Use your imagination.

For instance, challenge them to have an in-class invention convention. Have the teacher present a problem, such as designing a product to help a disabled person, in advance of your visit, and see what they create. Talk with them about their inventions and about how engineers help people. Award certificates to everyone. Or, develop your own hands-on demonstration to do in class.

To give you some background on what these younger students will be able to understand, here are some tips from "Sharing Science with Children: A Survival Guide for Scientists and Engineers," prepared by the North Carolina Museum of Life and Science.

Some typical science and technology topics in younger grades:

• Electricity & Magnetism

  5th and 6th grades--Static electricity, nature of electricity, simple circuit, batteries, series and parallel circuits, safety.

  3rd & 4th grades--Magnets, simple compass, uses of magnets.

  Earth & Space Science

  5th & 6th grades--Ecology, pollution, recycling, constellations, space travel, flight, oceans, water cycle, properties of water.

  3rd & 4th grades--Heat and light, seasons, day, night, year, tides and eclipses, solar system, gravity, inertia and orbit, comets, meteors and meteorites, space exploration.

For more information from "Sharing Science," write Director of Education, North Carolina Museum of Life and Science, PO Box 15190, Durham, North Carolina 27704.

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