TekNoXpo joins high schoolers, college tech

Thursday was no regular school day for Teagan Friesen and Jason Toavas.

Rather than pouring through textbooks in their classroom at Lustre Christian High School in Frazer, the two high school seniors were operating Bobcat Skid Steers in the southwest parking lot behind the Armory Gymnasium at Montana State University-Northern.

A similar activity took place in a neighboring parking lot, where under the supervision of both staff and Northern students, their young guests knocked over orange cones with a backhoe.

Both were part of the equipment rodeo, one of 10 other hands-on activities at the eighth annual TekNoXpo, or Technology-Knowledge-Exposition.

Students, under the supervision of staff and university students, scooped up piles of gravel with the loader, turning around and dropping them a few feet away in a new pile.

Northern’s College of Technical Sciences and Careers hosts the event, which serves to stoke the interests of students in the technological sciences and provides them with a glimpse of the programs the university offers.

"I came down to check out the school, and they had this event going on, so I thought I would just stop by and check it out, drive some machinery and have a good time,” Friesen said.

Jim Potter, director of University Relations at Northern, said the event started in 2008, as a way to expose students to the benefits of careers in automotive and diesel technology, agriculture and nursing.

Buses of high school sophomores, juniors and seniors were brought from as far west as Sunburst, east as Wolf Point, and south as White Sulfur Springs.

“It’s kind of pulling from the region around us and the students who are interested in coming,” said Holly Haas, Big Sky Pathways, dual enrollment and Perkins coordinator at Northern.

Haas said on average, the event draws 215 students. This year, she said, the number had dipped slightly to about 190.

When she took over the program in 2013, Haas said the activities were not as hands-on.

“It just used to be where they would run through each department really quick, they would get 20 minutes and kind of showcase their program.”

The program evolved under Haas’ leadership, with a more interactive approach.

Following their arrival and a speech by Northern Chancellor Greg Kegel, students lining the bleachers of the gymnasium were divided into four groups covering a different tech field: agriculture and automotive technology, construction technology, diesel technology and nursing.

With the exception of those in the nursing program, who spent the three hours and 15 minutes in the nursing department, the three remaining groups participated in three 55- minute courses.

Haas said the equipment rodeo is probably the most popular, but those in the diesel technology group learned in separate stations about torque and visited Northern’s Bio-Energy Center, where they heard about and operated remote control cars that run on biofuels.

Those who took part in the agriculture and automotive technology group tested soil, counted seeds and weighed grain.

Students also took part in plotting out an acre on a nearby hill, learning that how to measure land has developed from simply using feet to measure an acre to using modern technology such as global positioning systems or GPS.

Other activities included learning about and identifying parts on large-scale farm equipment such as balers and combines.

The group’s final activity was a lesson on common practices like identifying mechanical fluids and learned about changing tires and learned about modern technologies in vehicles

Those who took part in the construction field events put their new skills to work by constructing marshmallow shooters.

Another activity involving civil engineering consisted of students building paper bridges and testing them to determine which bridges can withstand the most weight.

In the nursing department, students visited the university’s nursing staff, learned their blood type and saw how nurses care for patients through a simulated car crash east of the campus’s Cowan Hall.

The interactive displays aroused the interests of many of the young guests, including Friesen and Toavs.

They are graduating this year, and though they are not enrolled to start at Northern or any other university next semester, both said they are considering becoming Northern students in the near future.