SAE Foundation Annual Report 2011 - 5

In addition, the Foundation’s investment helped develop the AWIM website and Company Coordinator tools to extend AWIM’s reach beyond the classroom. These tools provide teachers and volunteers with access to online resources, including: online training, sample lesson plans, implementation guides and stories and videos from other AWIM classrooms around the country. The GM Foundation’s $5 million grant positions it as the SAE Foundation’s largest contributor. In addition to providing funding for program delivery, the development and distribution of “new, state-of-theart—STEM curricula”—the Fuel Cell and the Gravity Cruiser are also the result of the GM Foundation funding. “It is very rewarding to know that we played an instrumental role in developing AWIM’s newest middle school challenges—learning experiences that teach students about looking at technologies and the importance of finding alternative solutions to problems we’ll be facing in the future,” concluded Wingerter. In April 2012, approximately 150-200 students who have participated in the Fuel Cell challenge throughout the academic year will compete at the 2nd annual International Fuel Cell Challenge. The GM Foundation sponsors this activity, which takes place Thursday, April 26, 2012 in conjunction with SAE’s World Congress at Cobo Center in Detroit. This event provides the opportunity for students to demonstrate what they have learned as they work in Engineering Design Teams of three or four and race their Fuel Cell cars in distance, accuracy, weight carrying and speed trials.

Don Robins enjoys volunteering in the AWIM classroom and demonstrating the concepts and the curriculum to students in his local community.

GM Retirees Take AWIM to Heart
AWIM in Arizona began five years ago when a group of retired General Motors engineers, who are members of the GM Retirees Club of Arizona, accepted the challenge. Don Robins, a retired General Motors automotive engineer, is the AWIM coordinator in Arizona and works with SAE’s Arizona Section, the GM Retirees Club, and other local community service groups to recruit and connect volunteers to local classrooms to deliver the AWIM program. “Twenty-one Arizona State University engineering students volunteer in five different middle and elementary schools in the Valley as part of the SAE/AWIM program. Six students from the Polytechnic campus have also participated in the AWIM-sponsored programs. Volunteers come into the classroom one day a week to work with the students, but the teacher and the students spend at least two to three days per week working on the AWIM project. Our volunteers have formed a great partnership with SAE and the AWIM program because we all want to help kids, and what better way than getting them excited about math and science,” concludes Robins.

SAE Foundation Annual Report 2011

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of SAE Foundation Annual Report 2011