MONDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2003
NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN = 5A
Engineering Expo exhibits target youth with fun
By Lauren Airey lairey@kansan.com Kansan staff writer
Dozens of paper airplanes lay scattered on the floor in a Learned Hall classroom. Elementary school students visiting this Engineering Expo exhibit folded and re-folded one of three pre-printed paper airplane designs and aimed the airplanes at each other, at the ceiling, and out into the hallway.
"They're ecstatic," David Tenny, Overland Park junior, said. "These kind of Expo exhibits are important because it develops an interest in engineering early in life. I mean, it's paper airplanes. You can't go wrong with that."
The 92nd-annual Engineering Expo, "Evolution of Engineering,"
took place Friday at Learned Hall. About 840 elementary school, junior high and high school students participated in interactive displays at the free event. In addition to the registered students coming on field trips, hundreds of community members and KU students attended the Expo.
"I haven't gotten to look at all the displays yet, but I like how they're hands-on," Matthias Heilke, Central Junior High School eighth grader, said.
"We choose things that will come across to younger students," Brandt said. "We can't present it at too high a level. With the design contests, we try to keep students involved and expose them to what we do."
The EngineeringStudent Council has been planning this year's Expo since last May. Ian Brandt, Engineering Expo chairman, and about 25 student volunteers invited more than 250 Kansas schools to Expo last fall and then determined Expo's theme, design contests and exhibits.
The pasta bridge competition, a civil engineering activity, attracted students in every age group who used store-bought pasta and white glue to make their bridges. KU students then tested the bridges by adding sand to a bucket hung from the bridge. Eventually, the glue started to crackle under the weight of the bucket and the bridges snapped and broke.
The design contests included a pasta bridge competition, a balsa wood egg drop, and a history of engineering museum design.
The winner of the bridge com
petition built a bridge that held 100 pounds. Top three winners in each age category received Legos.
"We didn't expect to see anything over 50 pounds and they doubled that," Kevin Hardee, Belton. Mo. junior, said. "Everybody loves to build."
Thursday night was spent transforming ordinary classrooms in Learned Hall into interactive exhibits. Activities and displays included a wind tunnel demonstration, rocket design, a concrete canoe, race car simulator, a heat transfer pancake feed and networked computer gaming.
Brandt said the Expo was a recruiting tool for the University.
"If nothing else, students are fascinated with how things work," Brandt said. "They know an airplane works but
Courtney Kuhlen/Kansan
Mike VanDealen, Eudora aerospace engineering graduate student, peers at one of the Engineering Expo's displays, VanDeen wore an astronaut costume as an ambassador for the aerospace engineering program.
they don't know why. Now they becomes a career interest." can learn why things work and as they get up in age groups, it — Edited by Brandon Gay
Students turn to religious groups with threat of war
By Cal Creek
creek@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
As the U.S. military prepares to begin a possible war with Iraq, KU students look to their religious organizations for guidance in this time of conflict.
No matter what the opinion of its constituents, interest in the possible war is growing in some religious groups on campus.
The Rev. Shawn Norris, Lutheran campus pastor, said the students talked about the conflict informally, but they had recognized that they needed to have further discussions. Lutheran Campus Ministry is planning services for peace, in which students can pray for and discuss the conflict in a religious setting.
"For me, as a Christian, there's some important value of mercy," Norris said. "All of us are good and evil. My concern would be people thinking God is on our side."
While many Lutherans begin to pray for peace, Lawrence residents of the Muslim faith do not pray for peace at Masjid, the Muslim service, although they oppose the war.
Moussa Elbayoumy, a board member for the Islamic Center of Lawrence, said he hadn't heard anyone use the potential war as a subject for a religious sermon. He said the majority of Muslims with whom he'd spoken opposed the approaching war.
"Everyone should try their best to convince and influence our government to change its course," Elbayoumy said.
Many Muslims think a war can
be justified if one's home, family and beliefs are threatened. Elbayoumy said that President Bush was not justified to invade Iraq and expressed concern for Bush's religious stance on the approaching war. Elbayoumy said the government was "talking out of both sides of its mouth" when it said that the potential war was not about religion, yet it profiles people of the Muslim faith for inspection.
Unlike many Muslims, the Jewish community does not share the same beliefs with one another regarding the threat of war.
"It really has not been a major topic of conversation," said Jay Lewis, executive director of KU Hillel. "There's no monolithic response. Jewish opinion runs the entire spectrum on the war."
Lewis said students had concerns, but the concerns were no different from those outside of religious organizations — except for concerns for Israel. He said he was concerned about the possible war's effects because during the onset of the Gulf War, Iraq fired missiles at Tel Aviv, Israel.
Hillel and the St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center will provide students concerned about war with the opportunity to hear it discussed among an inter-faith panel. The panel will discuss what makes a just war with representatives from the Protestant, Jewish, Catholic and Muslim faiths at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Kansas Union.
The Rev. Vince Krische said he emphasized prayer for peace for Catholic students who opposed the potential war, in addition to
writing letters to Congress and staving informed.
"War is always devastating." he said. "The cost of war goes on and on. We're still paying for Vietnam, for what it did to our society."
American bishops are urging peace, he said. According to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Web site, the bishops think the approaching war would not meet the morals implied in Catholic teaching. The Catholic church believes that anything that diminishes human life is to be avoided, Krische said.
Students involved with Ecumenical Christian Ministries constructed an often vandalized anti-war sign, which returned to the ECM lawn this morning after last Saturday's protest. As part of the Lawrence Coalition for Peace and
Justice, members of ECM have participated in anti-war protests.
"We feel this war is unjust. There is no immediate threat to the U.S.," said the Rev Thad Holcombe, campus pastor for ECM.
Holcombe also expressed concern with President Bush's growing use of religious allusion and biblical references regarding terrorism and the war.
"I'm disgusted about it," Holcombe said. "It becomes an idolatry thing to say God is on our side."
Holcombe asked those concerned or involved in the war to look at it from both sides, to raise questions in classes, and keep up with the news.
"How do you see the face of God in your enemy?" Holcombe said.
— Edited by Anne Mantey
X