By Jade Floyd
May 1, 2006

Mobile Mayor Samuel Jones welcomed Cities United for Science Progress to Mobile for a Science in the School Day March 29.

Reaching more than 650 fourth graders across the city, the event took place in seven Mobile elementary schools. Jones’ office recruited all of the city council and school board members to serve as his surrogate mayor in six of the schools, while he, a school board member and DuPont representatives participated at Eichold-Mertz Elementary School working with children on the puff-mobile experiment.

DuPont Field Engineer Gabriel Lee led the experiment at Eichold-Mertz. The afternoon began with an interactive question and answer session with the children about the different types of engineering. Children were asked to identify various machines and structures in a picture and guess what type of engineer they thought designed these objects.

Jones worked his way through the tables in the auditorium filled with more than 140 fourth graders from the school and helped them create their puff mobiles. Students took a break from building their puff mobiles and rushed up to the mayor to obtain his autograph. He frantically tried to sign each child’s puff mobiles as they shoved one after another in front of him. Television cameras followed the mayor throughout the auditorium as kids jumped in front of the camera saying, “Am I going to be on TV, mayor?”

Soon the racing began and all the students packed into the gymnasium’s bleachers to watch the final rounds of the puff mobile races. Students roared in unison as more than 20 students were in the finals taking turns racing against each other. Then came the final race. The crowd quieted and Jones shouted, “On your mark, get set, go!” The two students went scrambling across the floor as they blew at their puff mobiles. The entire fourth grade jumped up and cheered in the bleachers as the winner crossed the finish line.

Jones presented each of the children with an honorary “Engineer for the Day” certificate signed by the DuPont engineers at the conclusion of the event.

“Children across the city of Mobile were able to partake in this Science in the School Day, and I would like to thank DuPont and the U.S. Conference of Mayors for bringing this program to our city,” said Jones. “They had the opportunity explore science in a fun and interactive setting. It is my hope that these schoolchildren will consider a career in math and science and perhaps aspire to one day grow-up to be engineers,” he concluded.

Mobile is the oldest settlement and the second largest city in the state of Alabama. A native of Mobile County, Jones first took office on the County Commission in 1987 and was unanimously elected president in 1988. He was one of the longest serving Commissioners in Mobile County and is a pioneer in city/county partnerships, including Mobile Government Plaza. Jones was elected mayor in 2005.

CUSP is a partnership between The United States Conference of Mayors and DuPont. Through the $3 million Lead'safe…for Kids’ Sake grant program more than 30 cities have received grants and the acclaimed Science in the School Day initiative has visited more than 54 cities with close to 14,000 elementary school children participating.

For more information on how to bring Science in the School Day to your city, contact CUSP Managing Director Jade Floyd at 202-466-7324 or send e-mail to jfloyd@usmayors.org.