Kevin Young, an Idaho Environmental Coalition engineer, helps students build an electromagnet recently at STEAM Day at the Idaho Falls Zoo.
Kevin Young, an Idaho Environmental Coalition engineer, helps students build an electromagnet recently at STEAM Day at the Idaho Falls Zoo.

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho – Inquisitive grade-school students in eastern Idaho curious about science and problem solving found much to like during a recent visit to the zoo.

Idaho Environmental Coalition (IEC), EM's contractor at the DOE Idaho National Laboratory Site, recently participated in the annual STEAM Days event at the Idaho Falls Zoo. The intent of the event is to get students interested in science, technology, engineering, arts and math — STEAM — while visiting exotic animals.

More than 1,200 elementary school students from throughout the region visited as many as a dozen booths at the zoo. At IEC’s booth, students learned how to make an electromagnet. They were given a C-cell battery, insulated wire, and high-carbon steel nails, that when assembled correctly, produced a magnetic field. Students used their electromagnets to pick up paper clips and affect the needle of a small compass.

“Our hope was they would form an intuitive connection between electricity and magnetism,” said IEC engineer Kevin Young, who staffed the booth along with IEC manager Tim O’ Connor. “The result was they were very excited when they saw their electromagnet pick up a paper clip and how they could manipulate a compass.”

Young said a number of students expressed interest in learning more. Others put their sweet tooth first.

“Half of the students said they would be interested in going into science fields,” he said. “And then I heard one kid ask, ‘When do I get a snow cone?’”

Over the last decade and a half, EM and its contractors in Idaho have participated in many STEAM-related events to attract the next generation of cleanup program employees. STEAM Days at the Idaho Falls Zoo, Engineering Day at the Museum of Idaho and Earth Day are just a few examples.

According to the Idaho STEM Action Center (ISAC), 16 of the top 20 careers in the state of Idaho require STEM skills. In Idaho, STEM jobs pay double the median wage.

But there is much work to do. ISAC says that at any time thousands of STEM-related jobs go unfilled in Idaho, resulting in about a half-billion dollars of lost personal income and more than $27 million dollars in lost income tax revenue.

EM and IEC are hoping to reverse those numbers through STEM-related initiatives. Like a magnet, they are working to attract the next generation of scientists or engineers to available Idaho Cleanup Project jobs.