STEM Students Do a Google Hangout with a Dyson Engineer

This is my school's first year implementing STEM for our middle school students.  Our 6-8th grade students take two trimesters of STEM and one trimester of art. When the students are in STEM, they participate in engagements (or projects) with a partner and have to relate each engagement with a career connection.  Our middle school students are having a difficult time making the connection between their engagements and relating it to a real-world career.  To help my students begin to understand that type of connection, I've decided to take our STEM class outside the four walls of our room and reach out to professionals within these STEM careers that my students are researching.

My first reach out was to the Dyson engineering company located right here in Chicago!  The first grade class within my school prevously participated in a Google Hangout with a Dyson engineer and I thought it was an amazing experience, especially for the students.  After that, I decided to reach out and The Dyson Company did a Google Hangout with my 6-8th grade STEM students as well.  We were able to communicate with a female engineer and ask her questions about her job and how she got where she is today.  The students were able to make connections with the work they did inside the STEM lab compared to what the Dyson engineer did at her job.  Thank you, James Dyson Foundation for alloting time for us to communicate with you! It was such a great experience and we look forward to putting something together again in the future!

Enjoy some of the questions we asked and pictures from the event below.