Honda and COSI kicked off the Honda Engineering Roadshow late Monday morning in the Kroger parking lot.
Representatives from each business were passing out STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) Kits, or Engineering Learning Lunchboxes.
“These kits are great STEM boxes with five different experiments,” said COSI President and CEO Frederic Bertley. “We made them in partnership with Honda. It’s our engineering kit, and they are for children, ages 5-15, but really they are for people of all ages to teach them about engineering, how fun it is, and then the amazing careers that are available through engineering.”
The new Engineering Learning Lunchbox was created in partnership with and as a result of a contribution from Honda. The kit contains 10 hours of STEM content and provides five engineering-focused learning activities showcasing the diversity of STEM careers at modern manufacturing companies like Honda. It aims to inspire and educate youth and families about the many facets of engineering, including aerospace, chemical, electrical and structural engineering.
The nationwide initiative of the roadshow is to deliver 20,000 kits to students in kindergarten through eighth grade.
Distribution of the kits is taking place in partnership with local food banks across the country.
The Second Harvest Foodbank of Clark, Champaign, and Logan Counties was onsite passing out food.
Bertley explains they came up with the tagline “feeding hungry lives and feeding hungry minds.”
“The food pantries nourish the body, our kits nourish the mind. It is a great way of making sure kids from all zip codes, but especially the rural and more under-served communities get access to the STEM enterprise.”
This new roadshow includes stops across the nation, from California to North Carolina, over the next year.
