As part of this week's National Engineers Week festivities, Thursday is the eighth annual "Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day." There are related events in businesses and schools across the US (engineers willing to speak to classes or other groups are also listed on the site).If there are no events in your area, you might point any interested girls to some of the online resources the National Engineers Week web site suggests:
- The Engineer Your Life web site is a look at engineering for high school girls, with profiles of women engineers, descriptions of different types of engineering jobs, and information about college engineering programs.
- Engineer Girl is similar to Engineer Your Life, but is targeted primarily to middle school girls.
- Engineer Girl is also running an essay contest (girls and boys from 3rd-12th grade) on the topic "Engineering Energy for the Future". First place is $500 and publication of the essay online. The deadline is March 1, so there's not much more time to enter.
- The Discover Engineering site is for middle school students - both boys and girls - has information and videos about "cool" engineering, profiles of engineers, and engineering-related games and activities.
- Changing Our World: True Stories of Women Engineers is "a colorful, 256-page celebration of the contributions of women engineers to every aspect of modern life. The book is a collaborative effort of many different individuals and organizations to address the long-standing under-representation of women in the engineering profession." You can purchase a hard cover copy, or read the pdf version online for free.
I wish I would have known about this for my So Sioux Me empowering girls site. I would love to have done a story about it. I also would have sent my daughter to work with an engineering friend. Bummer. Next Year.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to add you to my blogroll because I love the concept of highlighting women in science. I felt shut out and now I feel it's just not my field of expertise, but I'd love to see more female involvement.
If the creative process is dramatically changed with female involvement then you know science will dramatically change with female involvement too!