SPRINGVILLE -- On a school day otherwise like any other, six boys at Westside Elementary crowd around a plastic basin filled with dish soap, twisting handfuls of white pipe cleaners into increasingly elaborate shapes to test their bubble-blowing skills.

It's part of an educational exercise to teach the kids about geometry, explains Arno Copley, a coordinator of Utah State University's Junior Engineering program. For no matter what designs they concoct for their blowers, the bubbles always take flight in the most efficient shape: a sphere.

In another room, a group of first-graders watch a video about astronauts playing with toys in space. Then each one digs into a container of similar toys in front of them, stirring up a cacophony of spinning and clicking and bouncing as they compare their experiences with those on screen. In a third, Copley illuminates a fluorescent bulb with no apparent power source.

"Holy crap," mutters a girl nearby.

The program has inspired similar revelations from more than 750,000 children across 460 schools in Utah, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona and Wyoming over the past 13 years. It's become a regular event in Utah County classrooms. But unless something changes, that utterance, which came during a morning class on Thursday, will be one of the last.

Without a new sponsoring department at USU and more stable revenue sources, the Junior Engineering program will die June 4. Copley said the program needs to visit about 180 schools a year to remain viable, but during the economic decline of the past 12 months, only about 120 have invited the group.

"Right now, where things are at, we're in a world of hurt," he said. "We have to meet those two needs by that deadline or we're shutting down."

The program, which includes four full-time employees and a part-timer, needs about $250,000 a year to sustain itself, Copley said. Historically, it has been able to do so -- but because of the dry year last year, USU's Engineering and Technology Education Department, which had previously housed the program, announced earlier this month that it could no longer do so. Copley said he's in conversations with another department on campus, but hasn't reached a deal yet.

Even if the program were to find a new home, it wouldn't solve the money problems. Copley said the program usually costs schools about $3 per student. But with declining interest during the recession, he said the staff has begun to look toward corporate sponsorships and private donations as a way to stay alive. Success along those lines has been somewhat less than the group hoped, he said.

"It's always been critical to do a certain number of schools," he said. "Because of that, we need to see if we can get some support."

The June 4 deadline looms because an advisory board meeting is scheduled for that day. If nobody at the meeting has a solution, Copley said, the program will simply end. It's possible that it could be brought back sometime in the future -- but it's anybody's guess when, he said.

Angela Day, staff developer at Westside Elementary, said the school has been eager to invite the Junior Engineering program back every few years because it offers kids exposure to activities that it otherwise couldn't fund. She said that were it to disappear, it would be sorely missed.

"Students see that science and math can be fun," she said. "It's the hands-on approach. It's the engagement factor. It gives the students a change from maybe a more routine schedule."

• Ace Stryker can be reached at astryker@heraldextra.com.

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