Burns & McDonnell, Science City Announce Plans to Continue Partnership

Burns & McDonnell and Science City have sealed the deal. Although the two have already worked together for more than a decade, they came together last night to make the partnership official and announce lofty plans for the future.

To further STEM education, Burns & McDonnell will invest $2.5-3 million in Science City over the next five years through a number of initiatives. While new programs will continually be developed, the first phase includes:

• Burns & McDonnell Battle of the Brains: Commitment for two more K-12 STEM competitions, with each to result in a $1 million permanent exhibit designed by the winners.
• Field Trip Transportation Fund: For an entire school year, Burns & McDonnell will award one field trip per week for a class to visit Science City.
• Pop-Up Series: Burns & McDonnell and Science City employees will be on-site to present and speak with students.
• Summer Camp: STEM professionals from Burns & McDonnell will enhance Science City’s summer camp by presenting industry trends and insights regarding careers in STEM.
• Internship:  A Burns & McDonnell Battle of the Brains participant will be offered an internship to work at Burns & McDonnell or Science City.
• A public celebration honoring the partnership: On Sunday, Oct. 28 from noon to 5 p.m. admission at Science City will be offered for pi… $3.14 that is.

Although the Burns & McDonnell and Science City partnership is just now definitively set for the future, the benefits of their collaboration have already been witnessed. “Our partnership with Burns & McDonnell has led to four student-inspired, million-dollar exhibits, grown attendance by 120 percent and, most importantly, deepened our engagement with area educators, students and families,” George Guastello, president and CEO of Union Station said in a release. “As Science City approaches 20 years of service to Kansas City and has been recognized internationally, we’re poised to now create a future bigger and more impactful than ever thought possible.”

Ray Kowalik, CEO of Burns & McDonnell, says he hopes that by investing in education now, the Kansas City STEM field will benefit in the future. “Almost every new job being created in in our economy is STEM related. In fact over a million STEM jobs go unfulfilled every year because we don’t have enough graduates,” Kowalik said. “We want kids excited about it. With this, program we’ve got kids helping us to design new exhibits, and in fact, at Burns & McDonnell this year we made our first two hires from kids that were participants of Battle of the Brains five years ago, and they’re going to be engineers at Burns & McDonnell next year.”