About

About OSA

Why Outdoor STEM Adventures (OSA) was Created

As kids live out their lives, they encounter physical phenomena that they use to create their understanding of concepts like gravity, effort-resistance-flow, and conservation of momentum, just to name a few.

Research has shown that in many cases, these experiences alone are not enough to create an accurate and/or complete understanding of these principles. This can result in a student’s intuition about these concepts to be incorrect and when confronted with the concepts in a traditional class, they get frustrated and believe that they “just don’t get it”.

Outdoor STEM Aventures creates experiences for kids to participate in, while being guided by trained instructors, to help kids acquire an accurate understanding of these principles. We hope to reach and inspire kids who may already feel frustrated and challenge kids who “get it,” while giving them all a solid STEM foundation. Helping students connect the experiences with underlying principles will give them the confidence they need to pursue and excel in STEM fields and beyond.

What do we do?

Our experiments are large scale and immersive. Kids are not only observing, they are taking part in the elements being investigated. Kids become molecules, objects sliding down an incline plane, sound waves and more. We will explore Solar power, sound, light, forces and motion, bio-mimicry, phase change, heat transfer, simple machines…the list goes on and on and is customized for each class.

We focus primarily on physics and mechanical mechanical engineering principles. These principles can be found everywhere you look in nature and we strive to help kids make scientific connections with these activities that they can carry with them back into the classroom.

Who I am

Eric Hanson - Founder

My Story
I was born and raised in Durham NC, always curious about how things were made and why they worked. Being a kid who loved to be outdoors every chance I had, I didn’t have a desire to hit the books to find answers to my questions. Regardless, the answers to my questions seemed hidden behind complicated math and science concepts that I thought were out of reach to this dirt stained southern boy.
My outdoor education resulted in being awarded the rank of Eagle Scout and a decision to enlist in the Marine Corps in 1996.
It was during my time in the Marines as a Jet engine mechanic for the AV8B Harrier that I started to realize if I could understand the concept of how something worked through experience, the math and scientific languages made more sense and suddenly did not seem so far out of reach.

What happened next changed my life.

In July of 2000, a large portion of the Harrier fleet was grounded due to concerns about engine bearing problems.
Field engineers from the engine manufacturer were deployed to perform vibration scans specifically targeting engine bearings. My task was to help the field engineers collect vibration data off the engine. I was completely surprised to learn that all they had to do was attach a sensor to an easily accessible structural member of the engine and run it. Vibration caused by one particular bearing in an engine full of moving parts could be pulled out of the data seemingly like magic.
I was certified to operate the aircraft for ground maintenance and had done so many times with my focus 100% on the instruments, annoyed by the sounds and vibrations of the engine. What was once an annoyance I now realized was a continuous flow of information just waiting to be understood. I had never heard of an FFT (Fast Fourier Transform), but I now knew from experience what it was used for and what the information it provided really meant. Having this understanding made all the difference in the world.
I was honorably discharged in 2001 and immediately started school at Pitt Community College beginning my quest to become what had once been completely out of the question; I was going to become a mechanical engineer.
In 2006 I graduated from North Carolina State University with a mechanical engineering degree. While at NCSU I had started interning at LORD Corporation in Cary as a lab tech. Upon graduation I was hired at LORD and spent the next 12 years testing, designing and managing electromechanical products.

Now that I had made it, something was missing.

I had been relatively successful in every position I held at LORD. Even so, I began to realize that it was not my work at LORD that I looked forward to each day. Shortly after starting at LORD I volunteered to participate in a STEM expo at a nearby elementary school. I didn’t know it then, but once again, my life’s trajectory had changed. Seeing the kid’s eyes light up in wonder followed by the ah-ha moment was an experience like no other.

Looking back, the pieces are all there like bread crumbs.

Only now do I see the long winding path leading to the moment when I decided to resign from LORD to follow my true passion. In scouting I mentored younger scouts teaching them the skills they would need to progress. As an Eagle Scout I served as the Junior Assistant Scoutmaster mentoring the new leaders. While serving in the Marine Corps I received a performance review from my OIC (Officer in Charge) that read the following: “One of the best instructors I have ever seen in a maintenance department. Uncanny ability to break down complex issues and relate in an easy to understand manner.” While at LORD I looked forward to each summer when we would get a new group of interns that I would get to teach and mentor. I began volunteering with Junior Achievement (JA) teaching elementary and middle school students about STEM skills and entrepreneurship. Every morning I woke up with one hidden desire; to find the next opportunity to volunteer for JA, participate in a STEM expo or mentor an intern or new employee. I couldn’t get enough and work just seemed to be getting in the way.

It was time to make a change.

Outdoor STEM Adventures is intended to provide the same type of experiences that I had the Marine Corps as a jet mechanic and in scouting; adventures in which the whole body participates in learning. We go outdoors because every kid has access to the engineering lab we call nature. We focus on STEM because no matter what you want to be when you grow up, understanding how to solve problems, challenge you assumptions and see wonder in everyday activities is a game changer.