A science and engineering club aimed at getting more
kids interested in those subjects is being piloted at
Rock Island middle schools.

The club, part of the Southeast Consortium of Minorities in Engineering, will give students a chance to try their skills in science, math and engineering.

Rock Island's is the only SECME club in Illinois. A SECME club in Davenport is in its second year.

Engineering deans at seven southeastern universities established SECME in 1975 after noting a shortage of technical talent in their field, and deciding to seek untapped minority and female talent.

``The purpose is to encourage under-represented students to pursue careers in math, science, engineering and technology,'' Ms. Ingham said, adding that if the club is successful, it could be continued after the two-year pilot period ends.

Since SECME debuted at Washington and Edison middle schools last fall, about 110 students have joined.

``We didn't expect to have that many,'' Ms. Ingham said. ``We had a wonderful response.''

Deere & Co. is the Rock Island club's corporate sponsor, and 80 to 100 employees are serving as mentors.

Ms. Ingham said Deere wanted a program that could potentially recruit workers, and by getting kids interested in math and engineering early, there's a greater potential for them to develop interests into a career.

``This is an opportunity for students to get enhanced or increased awareness in what it takes to be an engineer or an accountant,'' Debbie Taylor, manager of diversity for Deere, said.

``It gives them some increased training in the area of math and science. It really does open up the math and science world to students.''

``It's a pilot program and if everything continues to go OK, it would be our intention as a corporation to see that this program continues in any of the school districts that would like to see it,'' she said.

Ms. Ingham said the district eventually will track SECME members to see if they enroll in more science-oriented classes in high school.

The students' first assignment last fall was to design a logo for the local SECME chapter's T-shirts. The students who submitted the winning design -- Washington eighth-grader Halle O'Connor and seventh-graders Hannah Woodstock, Lola Guzman and Emily Green -- developed their design with a Deere graphic designer, and lunched afterward in Deere's executive dining room.

Students also have visited the Deere engineering plant in Silvis, the University of Iowa School of Engineering and a water-bottle rocket clinic.

Students competed against each other in a regional competition April 12. Trevon Smith, an eighth-grader at Edison, won the essay contest. Hannah Woodstock, a seventh-grader at Washington, won the poster contest.

Three Washington students, eighth-grader Halle O'Connor, and seventh-graders Lukas Thoms and Willie Williams, won the mousetrap-car competition.