Youngsters try their hand as scientists and lawyers for a day

BY RAY DELGADO

The future of earthquake-resistant building design seems promising, judging by what a handful of youngsters were able to do with popsicle sticks during a workshop for the university's seventh annual "Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work" day.

The sister and brother team of Candice and Anthony Pena evaluate their sweetly successful completion of a dipped strawberry “Iron Chef” contest, organized as part of the annual "Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work" day. Photo: DARWIN MAN

Armed with a glue gun and some cutters, 15 children used popsicle sticks, straws and wooden skewers to create 8-inch-tall platforms that could be used to hold up a water tower. The seven towers were then nailed down to the platform on an earthquake simulator located within the Blume Earthquake Engineering Center and shaken with the force of an 8.0 temblor.

Graduate student Yang Wang helps Michal Krupa and Gregory Chin build a platform for a water tower from popsicle sticks, straws and skewers during "Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work" day. Photo: Racquel Hagen

Years of playing with Lego blocks and model sets seemed to pay off when all of the towers withstood the shaking, much to the delight of the budding engineers.

"I think a lot of glue helps," said 10-year-old Tyler Arnold of Redwood City, one-half of the winning team whose tower was the only structure that survived when the "shake table" was kicked up to five times the speed of the original 8.0 earthquake.

Despite his inspired victory over other kids who were as old as 15, Arnold hesitated when asked if he would pursue a career as a structural engineer. "Maybe," he said, then added, "I think I really want to be a doctor though."

But the project did have him thinking about a different career path, one of the goals of the annual event that sponsored 24 workshops around campus for about 300 children. The Ms. Foundation launched "Take Our Daughters to Work" day in 1993 and added "and Sons" to the name of the event last year.

Cub reporters (clockwise from top left) Neta Sanders, Tori Adams, David Bessin, Ellie Sanders, Emma Goss, Micayla Reed and Haizea Alemany (not pictured) spent the morning at the Stanford News Service, using their reporting and writing skills to put together a special "Take Our Daughters to Work" edition of Stanford Report. Photo: L.A. Cicero

"From the feedback of the parents and how the children came back on the whole, they were very excited about what they did," said Teresa Rasco, director of the university's WorkLife Office, which organized the event.

Stanford invites the sons and daughters of faculty and staff to participate in the event as an opportunity to explore interesting career fields, learn about various research projects at the university and see where mom or dad works. The kids get the added bonus of skipping school with a valid excuse.

The earthquake safety workshop was a new offering this year, along with workshops on being a NASA engineer, studying the global climate, exploring child-development study and mapping the university. Many popular workshops also returned this year, including "Adventures at the Greenhouse," a visit in a medical school office, a day in the life of a campus police officer, the production of a fitness video and an exploration of classrooms of the future.

One of the toughest workshops to get into was the hands-on cooking class -- with good reason. The lucky students donned aprons and chef hats and got to learn the fine art of dipping strawberries in chocolate.

"I melted some chocolate for them and told them, 'Go ahead and have some fun,'" said Raul Lacara, manager of Branner and Manzanita dining halls. "It's going to be messy."

After dipping the strawberries and covering them with sprinkles and other toppings, the students got to experiment with being pastry chefs: They were given various colored sauces to frame their decadent berries on a plate as part of an "Iron Chef" competition.

In the end, all the students were crowned victorious and were allowed to eat their creations as a reward.

Chris Nguyen, a 14-year-old from Menlo Park, could hardly contain his enthusiasm for the workshop because he thinks cooking could be a career that he could fall back on if his other options don't pan out.

"I love cooking," Nguyen said. "At home I cook a lot of stuff. I've made tiramisu -- not the fancy kind. The kind with ladyfingers."

Professor Gregory Deierlein, director of the Blume Center, said he enjoyed creating the water tower project for his young students -- one of whom was his daughter -- because it taught them about structural engineering.

"Things that look bigger and heftier aren't always better if there's a structural failure," Deierlein said. "We wanted them to do some hands-on projects and have fun."

The students seemed to grasp the concept of sound building design from the beginning, many of them ditching the sketching process so that they could tackle the construction more quickly.

"We need a wide base with strong support," 11-year-old Zachary Winters told his building partner and a graduate student who was helping out. "You can't have it standing on something weak."

When asked where he came up with his building knowledge, Zachary mumbled something about Legos and K'nex construction toys. "It's just fun to build stuff like this," he said.