HOT SPRINGS -- The Hot Springs Convention Center is overflowing with students and educators from nearly 240 school districts across the country this week for the 19th annual Environmental and Spatial Technology Conference.
Mike Dozier, president and chief executive officer for the Environmental and Spatial Technology Initiative, said the conference is one part exhibition, one part celebration and one part education.
"[Environmental and Spatial Technology] is an educational program that was born here in Arkansas 22 years ago that stresses educational achievement through service and technology," Dozier said. "Students take on service projects using the most sophisticated technologies we can get our hands on, many times in emerging fields."
He said that the conference is the pre-eminent student gathering in the nation, "because they've got the neatest stuff and it really is student-focused."
The conference includes an exhibit hall, where schools with Environmental and Spatial Technology programs set up booths to display the projects the students have worked on during the year, as well as breakout sessions for students to attend and get hands-on experience from experts in their fields. They also have the opportunity to hear from state and nationally recognized speakers.
"It's not the teachers talking about what to do while the kids are sitting in the back -- the kids are leading this," Dozier said. "The kids are even leading the logistics of the event."
During the conference, Dozier said students have the opportunity to see what their peers have been working on, and whether similar projects or ones they may not have realized were possible.
"This year we have some really high-profile presenters coming in," he said, including one from a virtual reality company, one who worked for Pixar on 'Frozen' and a TED Talker.
In addition, Skip Rutherford -- dean of the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service in Little Rock -- is making a presentation, Dozier said.
Rutherford was the first president of the advisory board of the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts. The school, based in Hot Springs, is a residential public high school for students who specialize in high-level mathematics, science and art courses.
At the Environmental and Spatial Technology conference, officials will recognize the work that students developed at their schools.
An alumni member of the Environmental and Spatial Technology initiative -- Jessica deLinde Dyckman, a graduate of Fountain Lake High School in Garland County and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock -- will be at the conference. She spent the last 10 years as a civilian liaison officer for the Marine Corps unit stationed in Marine Corps Air Station Marimar in San Diego.
What's exciting, Dozier said, is the projects the students are capable of completing and the organizations and businesses coming to participate in the event, including NWA3D, CyberPatriot, AT&T, Mid-America Science Museum, the Smithsonian's Museum on Main Street group, and NASA.
"We have the support of a number of organizations from the Department of Education all the way to small startups, to multinationals," Dozier said. "They make it possible for us to host an event of this size and scope. We started this thing under the running philosophy that we did not want to make it what kids expect. They're not herded somewhere so someone can tell them what they can do one of these days. Instead, they're leading. We want to show them what the real world looks like, and if you go to one of these big conferences you see parts of that.
"The funny thing is last year when the Facebook people left, we were debriefing with them ... and they had so many more questions on how we pull this event off when it's basically run by kids. We pull it off by telling [students] they can pull it off and then turning them loose. We tell them to bring their best."
Metro on 03/15/2018