Army seeks volunteers for teen science education program
An Army education program designed to spur interest in math, science and technology is struggling this year to attract enough volunteer "ambassadors" to help students with their projects.
The program, dubbed eCybermission, is an online competition open to teenagers in sixth through ninth grades. Student groups are instructed to identify a problem in their community with health and safety, arts and entertainment, sports and recreation, or the environment and craft solutions that they eventually will submit via the Internet.
The program relies on the work of ambassadors who promote it to schools and give feedback on student progress to organizers. Eligible participants include any civilian and military personnel drawn from active duty, the Army National Guard and the Army Reserve.
The program also utilizes volunteer Army personnel with backgrounds in science and technology to serve as cyber guides. Those online coaches answer questions the teams might have about science, math and technology and steer the students toward useful resources.
This year's competition is set to begin in the fall, but as of Aug. 8, only 121 ambassadors and some 40 cyber guides had registered. Kate Sparrow, a senior consultant with eCybermission contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, said that falls short of the 600 ambassadors and 80 cyber guides the program hopes to attract. "We are in dire need of more ambassadors," she said.
The large number of troops currently stationed overseas likely is contributing to the shortage, Sparrow said.
People interested in becoming ambassadors first must pass background checks and then receive training from eCybermission officials. The time commitment is about 15 to 20 hours a month, with volunteers required to make three school visits and two community outreach visits each month. The duties are considered year round, though there is heavier emphasis in the August-November recruitment months.
The program began last year with 442 teams from the seventh and eighth grades. The seventh-grade winners, from New York's Mott Hall School, developed a plan to make their neighborhood safer, while the eighth-grade team, from Malow Junior High in Michigan, created a code designed to speed responses to emergency 911 calls.
ECybermission has been extended to the sixth and ninth grades this year, and the national winners for each grade will receive $5,000 EE savings bonds, medals and plaques.