DPS students learn all about engineering during summer camp

DETROIT (WXYZ) - Every year countless American kids attend summer camp. For many the experience amounts to daycare, but for a group of DPS elementary school students attending SEEK or Summer Engineering Experience for Kids camp, it’s anything but child's play.

To get an idea of what this special camp is all about, you really only need to ask young Cheyenne Weems.

“An Engineer takes problems and finds solutions. ” Cheyenne should know her father is an engineer and he knows all too well the important roll engineers play in our world.

“You have chemical engineers, electrical engineers, mechanical engineers. ”

Cyrill Weems is a civil engineer. He knows that moving forward, America will need more engineers If we are to compete in a global marketplace, and he's not alone in that thinking.

“We have a deficit in engineering. We don't have enough people going into the math and engineering and science fields to meet the needs of engineers so if you're taking about jobs of the future, that's one of the places where they are. ”

E. Christopher Johnson is an Attorney by profession, but he’s also a graduate of West Point;  one of America’s premier military academies, but it’s also one of America’s premier engineering schools. To fill America’s engineering void, West Point has teamed up with the National Society of Black Engineers to to enlighten about 300 DPS elementary school students and if all goes well, they will help lay the foundation for a life long love affair with learning.

“We want to make sure our students are not just learning for three weeks and after that it's gone. They're going to use this also in the fall and beyond that. ”

Dr. Jendayi Gardner is with Detroit Public Schools' Office of Mathematics. Her job is to help foster a love of mathematics. She could be happier to have such accomplished help on site at Bates Academy for this three week long learning session.

For the kids, the best part may be the opportunity to make working vehicles as they compete for bragging rights, but for parents there might be an even bigger reason to get the kids involved with science technology engineering and math. Just ask the mother of a future engineer; Eryka Cheathum

“Anything I can do to help him get straight a's, I'm all for it because that means when he goes to college, I don't have to pay!