IEEE Volunteers are dedicated to a variety of engineering outreach initiatives. Specifically, many participate in outreach programs aimed at supporting STEM in pre-university students. Mathias Magdowski was a 2022 STEM Champion from Germany (R8) dedicated to such programs. Magdowski was selected as a presenter during the 2022 STEM Summit roundtable where he and other selected STEM Champions spoke about their experiences and motivation for STEM outreach at the pre-university level. The roundtable discussion and all STEM summit presentations are all available on demand right here.

Magdowski is a research scientific co-worker at the Otto-von-Guericke University in Magdeburg, Germany. He originally got involved in STEM outreach in 2015 because of a popular German kids television program called The Show With the Mouse. The show has an annual open-door day where they invite research institutions and companies in STEM industries to show kids what they do. His team used this opportunity to demonstrate a large anechoic chamber that they usually use for electromagnetic compatibility testing to younger kids.

“We thought about, ok how can we explain [to] smaller kids in the age of let’s say from five years to twelve years what electromagnetic compatibility is, what radio frequency waves are, how they can be generated, how they can be transmitted, and so on. And then we developed lots of small experiments with remote-controlled, radio-controlled toy cars to explain this radio frequency, transmission and reception.”

He continued to explain that this then evolved into more STEM outreach programs driven by the university where groups of younger school children were invited on to campus and supervised in hands-on experimentation with robots and other smaller electronic contraptions.

When asked next in the roundtable what best practices he would recommend for volunteers looking to get involved in STEM outreach, Magdowski emphasized small groups and free-play for even the youngest of STEM learners. 

“I would say that some best practices in STEM outreach events are to have events that are really hands-on events for the kids where they can explore technology in their own hands and in their own usage and in a self-guided and safe-paced way. We usually divide the kids in small groups so that the kids can also talk to each other.”

He continued to explain that his team will always provide as much supervision as is needed for safety but will avoid over-structuring the supervision as well. His team believes that students will thrive in a small-group environment where they are able to self-guide their exploration with the equipment given, and that they will likely lose interest or pull away if the instructions given are too narrow or rigid.

When asked about what challenges there are to overcome, Magdowski replied that for him and his team, it has been reaching his target audience. 

“It’s quite easy to invite a whole group of kindergarten kids or a class of school children because you invite them over the teacher, for example, but if you do a STEM outreach event where you want to reach individual kids and if you want to invite especially girls to make them aware of the chances and options and possibilities in the STEM field, then it’s really hard to reach your target audience directly.”

He continued on by explaining that for events that target students that young, it is the parents who decide whether or not their students will be interested, not the students themselves. With this limitation,  there may be unfortunate bias or stigma already decided by the parent, rather than having the full opportunity for the students to decide for themselves. 

When asked what criteria he uses to define a successful outreach event, Magdowski noted that he and the other volunteers will usually be quite tired from the interaction but moved and rewarded by the children’s happy faces. He also described a successful event as one of inclusiveness, where students who, due to hindrances such as poor economic environments or previous struggles in STEM learning, have now had the opportunity to not only explore in a hands-on manner but realize and be inspired by the opportunities to now continue on. 

“Kids who thought they are bad at mathematics, for example, but then they program something, or they program a small robot and then they find out, ‘Oh I’m actually quite good at programming; I’m quite good at logical thinking and putting instructions into this machine and letting the machine do exactly what I want it to do.’ “ 

Mathias Magdowski received his Dipl.-Ing. and Dr.-Ing. degree in electrical engineering from the Otto-von-Guericke University, Magdeburg, Germany in 2008 and 2012, respectively, where he is currently working as a scientific co-worker at the Institute for Medical Engineering. His current research interests include statistical and analytical methods for modeling EMC problems. You can learn more about Magdowski on his LinkedIn profile.