When I was in ninth grade, I was part of an after-school program called Dow Explorers (hosted, obviously, by the local Dow Chemicals plant). Once a month or so, a group of us would get together and do simple experiments or projects that tied in to math and science, presumably as a way to see if we were interested in working for said company. I didn't really pay much attention to that side of it, because what we got to do was absolutely fascinating to someone with a sense of exploration. One month we had to bring in water samples from our homes or nearby lakes, and we did various tests to see how much of what additives were in them. Another time we got to learn how the company made Styrofoam and tour the production facility. And one time, we got to make boats...
One of the nearby towns had a yearly regatta-type thing, being situated on a rather large and fairly calm river. A month or two before it, the people in charge of our program asked us to bring a willing parent/ guardian in, and we split up into teams (kids vs elders) in order to design and build a raft- using only x amount of styrofoam and other materials- that we would then test by participating in the regatta. Naturally, none of us were expected to actually win it, it was more just a "let's give 'em something to do, while showing how invested we are in the community" type thing.
One of the nearby towns had a yearly regatta-type thing, being situated on a rather large and fairly calm river. A month or two before it, the people in charge of our program asked us to bring a willing parent/ guardian in, and we split up into teams (kids vs elders) in order to design and build a raft- using only x amount of styrofoam and other materials- that we would then test by participating in the regatta. Naturally, none of us were expected to actually win it, it was more just a "let's give 'em something to do, while showing how invested we are in the community" type thing.