Army Engineers Partner with DoDEA to Inspire Future Engineers at Aukamm Elementary School

Whether it's driving in cars, drinking clean water or going to school in a safely designed and constructed school building — the world depends on engineers.
That’s part of the message shared by engineers from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Europe District with hundreds of students from kindergarten through fifth grade at DoDEA’s Aukamm Elementary School during the community presentation day with Europe District on Feb. 12, 2025, as part of the school’s annual STEM month.

After hearing about what engineers do and how they impact the daily lives of everyone in the world, students asked Europe District personnel questions about their jobs and what they build, and then embarked on their own building projects using toothpicks and Play-Doh.

“While everyone is impacted by engineers, a lot of people still don’t know what they do or how their work affects them,” said Danielle Ericksen, a civil engineer in Europe District’s Engineering Technical Lead Section. “With the kids, it was a great opportunity to help them see engineers in person, hear about what we do and get to know why engineering is important – and have fun while doing it.”

The Play-Doh and toothpick tower building portion was where students got a chance to shine and show off their engineering chops.

“I was really impressed by the creativity of the students,” said Special Projects Resident Engineer Matty Haith. “We saw some classic towers shaped almost like the Eiffel Tower, we saw cubist stacked structures, some strong bases like bird nests and even some innovative use of the actual Play-Doh containers by a couple resourceful groups.”

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was invited to the school by Aukamm Elementary School Advanced Academics Programs Resources Teacher Catherine Martell who was key to setting up the STEM, or Science Technology, Engineering and Math, event.

“Thank you, to the Army Corps of Engineers for helping build a relationship with our students by coming here to our school to present on engineering and facilitate the Play-Doh-toothpick structure building activity,” Martell said. “There was a buzz of excitement still lingering in the hallways even in the days after the event and the kids and teachers thoroughly enjoyed the presentation, activity, and question/answer time here at Aukamm.”

The event was the largest of Europe District’s STEM engagement throughout Germany and in Italy around National Engineers Week celebrated Feb. 16-22.

The same week, Europe District engaged sixth grade science classes at Netzaberg Middle School in Bavaria. During National Engineers Week, Europe District personnel worked with middle school classes at Vicenza Middle School in Italy and Wiesbaden Middle School and Kaiserslautern Middle School in Germany as well.

Europe District also provided judges for both Aukamm’s Innovation Fair and DoDEA’s Junior Science and Humanities Symposium outside of Frankfurt.