For the past 13 years, a pair of trucks and trailers filled with high-tech equipment and lesson plans from Utah State University has hit the road as often as 250 times a year, taking science and technology experiments to elementary students statewide.

The excitement, says Junior Engineering Program coordinator Arno Copley, is worth far more than the $325,000 it takes to run the program, which has been running a deficit for more than two years. If a sponsor isn't found before June ends, the program and its four full-time and one part-time employees will be the latest victim of the economic downturn at the state's second-largest public institution.

The Engineering and Technology Education Department within the College of Engineering at USU currently sponsors the program, but since its inception, Junior Engineering has been entirely self-sustaining. Getting enough schools to participate in the past two years, said department co-director Kurt Becker, has led to "a business decision" that resulted in the demise of the program.

"We're suspending it until further notice," he said, adding that equipment will not be sold off but put in storage until the future of the program can be determined. "We just don't know what the future will bring."

Becker said the program is beneficial, and children and teachers seem to enjoy what it brings to their schools, but a closer look at why the teaching program has dwindled in the recent past is needed.

"It's also become more of a science-related program than an engineering program," he said. "It just isn't a good fit for us anymore. There's not enough of an engineering flavor to it." The idea of recruiting kids at such a young age is also something that doesn't sit well with department officials, as Becker said they typically focus on getting kids interested in the junior-high and high-school levels.

Copley is earnestly looking for a new home for the program, believing that it would be in the university's best interest to begin fostering children's love of science as early as possible.

"There is a need to get children involved and interested in the sciences at a younger age," Copley said, referring to a nationwide goal of bringing more science learning into schools. Approximately 95,000 K-6 students at 125 different schools witnessed the program in the past year, learning about various technological and scientific ideas such as how wind tunnels and jet propulsion work, among other scientific wonders.

Copley said the program is designed to help teachers teach the state-required science core.

The program can continue if Copley can come up with about $250,000, and children could keep building plastic rocket launchers, paper helicopters and retaining walls of sand and paper, as well as exploring fossils and learning about traffic safety.

"I just see the excitement in their eyes, and I've been doing this long enough to know that it's making a difference to them," Copley said. Grant applications, he said, aren't quick enough to meet the July 1 deadline, and if the program goes defunct, it would likely require $500,000 to bring it back.

"The bottom line is, to me, that the children in the state of Utah and at the other out-of-state schools that we visit, lose out," Copley said. "There is nothing like this program."

E-MAIL: wleonard@desnews.com