More than 120 third- through fifth-grade girls from around the region got a chance to explore STEM (Science, technology, engineering and math) fields at John Brown University's "Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day" on March 3.
The event was hosted by the university's chapter of the Society for Women Engineers (SWE) and held in the Balzer Technology Center.
Girls formed small groups led by female engineering students and tried hands-on activities that centered around electrical, mechanical, structural, aerospace and computer science engineering. They also listened to presentations by university students about their senior designs and internships with NASA.
"We firmly believe that STEM outreach is really important for younger girls," said Neeya Toleman, a senior electrical engineering student, and president and founding member of the local chapter of SWE. "We picked fourth grade as our target age because a lot of research has shown that that's an age where girls tend to lose interest in STEM."
JBU's engineering program has about 20 female students and about 10 of them are formal SWE members, Toleman said. The larger SWE was founded in the 1950s and has more than 40,000 members at both the collegiate and professional level. Toleman said JBU students began the process of establishing a local chapter during her freshman year and really got established during her sophomore year.
"I feel like we are on a good track to continue growing and continue coming up with new things and new ideas," she said.
JBU students had two goals when they formed the local SWE chapter -- to increase female camaraderie among university students and to create outreach opportunities, Toleman said.
This is the third year that SWE has hosted an "Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day," according to Ted Song, assistant professor of engineering at JBU.
The first year, there was only one leader and about 10 girls. Last year, the program expanded to include about 40 girls and this year it grew to two sessions with more than 120 girls from throughout Northwest Arkansas and Northeast Oklahoma, Toleman said. The organization also had a lot of support from sponsors for this year's "Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day."
Ryan Engineering of Siloam Springs is one of the companies that supported the event and a team of professional engineers from the company led students in a structural engineering activity. Girls were challenged to build a tower out of marshmallows and uncooked spaghetti noodles, according to engineer Andrew Bradford.
Bradford said his company got involved in the event to invest in the next generation. He explained that engineering as an industry suffers from a lack of diversity.
"We hope to change that in the next generation," he said.
Toleman is hopeful the event will get "the wheels turning" and encourage girls to see how engineering impacts their everyday lives.
"We're starting to get bigger picture questions and ideas going so that way there is more curiosity and interest when it comes down to later classes," she said.
General News on 03/11/2018