Erika Esala works at Eli Lilly & Company as a Senior Engineer in the Commercialization Technology Center.
There are currently many choices for a child who wants to participate in extracurricular activities. These range from team sports, clubs, scouting, individual sports, and activities commonly associated with STEM. This last category includes robotics teams, Quiz Bowl, Knowledge Bowl, coding teams, and other engineering challenges. These STEM activities are designed to increase children’s interest in STEM and to help promote their technical literacy, including learning Systems Engineering principles. However, there are many other children’s activities that currently do not introduce children to STEM and increase their interest in engineering. Since a different subset of children participates in these activities than the traditional STEM activities, there is a significant missed opportunity to promote STEM and Systems Engineering to these children. This presentation will go through common children’s activities to show the Systems Engineering principles in each activity. By understanding the engineering principles in these activities, current Systems Engineers can use these activities to promote engineering principles to children. Increasing the knowledge of engineering principles in these children can open the door to a career in STEM and understanding the impact engineering has on their life.
