A unique summer program in Louisville is inspiring and providing information to teens about engineering’s wide range of fields and were it is applied.  The Brown-Forman INSPIRE program, or Increasing Student Preparedness and Interest in the Requisites for Engineering program, has been offered since 1981.  The program is specifically designed to increase awareness of the diversity of engineering fields for high school students and prepare them for engineering programs in college.  The program allows the students to suit up and enter a cleanroom where nanotechnology and microelectronics are currently being developed.  To read the article and view images of the INSPIRE program, Click here.

 
The second article brings a more complex and scientific look into a cleanroom environment.  Media was allowed to join a tour of the Sanford underground laboratory, a former gold mine 4,850 feet underground that has been rebuilt to conduct “dark matter” experiments.  Throughout the tour media was able to view many interesting scientific processes at work.  They observed a cleanroom where workers wore full body coveralls as they processed copper through acid baths during a purification process, engineers laser scanning the newly constructed cavern where a new lab addition will be built, and a 40 foot high cavern where a 100ton tank of water will be built to conduct a future dark matter experiment.  To read the full article click here or for more information on the Sanford underground Lab click here.