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What we want to do is not just expose them to chemical engineering concepts but to real
science. This is not about setting stuff on fire and getting interested in, you know,
looking at the pretty colors.
The academy, the camp, which is a week long, we divide it into about four different segments.
so we're doing an experiment early on where we're extracting the sugars out of a biomass
material, like either switchgrass or algae. We then ferment that material and so we're
producing, in this case, enthanol from that biomass material.
Our focus is to expose them to a really wide range of disciplines because chemical engineering
is not just, um, working in industry and producing chemicals. Like I said, it's also about production
of biofuels, it's about pharmaceuticals, it's about biomedicine. And so we try to expose
them to as many of those different ideas as possible, and give them a way to figure out
where they want to go.
We have another one where we have the students create their own new flavor of yogurt. And
so they could not copy something, they had to genuinely create a new flavor, and they
had to go to test panels, determine what's the best one based on professional test panels,
and finally scale this up as an engineer would do.
They get to spend a week on campus, and it kind of gives them the opportunity to experience
life as college. It also exposes them to university lectures and to work in a university lab.It's
very exciting to know that these are kids who are, you know, the next generation of
scientists, who are feeling that spark of discovery.