BridgeValley CTC’s Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day connects eighth-grade girls to women studying and working in engineering fields.
By Zachary Carrier
In a month packed with outreach events, the students and faculty of West Virginia University Institute of Technology’s (WVU Tech) Leonard C. Nelson College of Engineering and Sciences are showing young students their potential in STEM fields and celebrating National Engineers Week (February 21-27).
On Tuesday, February 9, members of WVU Tech’s Association for Women Engineers, Scientists, or Mathematicians Empowerment (AWESOME), visited the Culture Center in Charleston for Girl’s Day at the Legislature, where they taught students from Cabell Midland High School about computer coding and robotics. They also worked with the students on action plans addressing education concerns and ways female students can better explore the career options available to them.
On Saturday, February 20, dozens of WVU Tech students and faculty members participated in Discover Engineering Day at the Clay Center. They worked with hundreds of young students to demonstrate the science behind electrocardiograms, how studying aquatic insects can help determine the health of a stream and how binary and hexadecimal code is used in computing. They also helped attendees pilot robots using Wii Fit balance boards, build circuits, construct bridges, experiment with chromatography, generate electricity with Gatorade, explore how engines work and check out WVU Tech’s popular Baja racing buggy.
For students like Kaylah Bovard, who studies mechanical engineering at WVU Tech and is active in the University’s K-12 STEM programming, this type of outreach reinforces the fundamentals college students learn in the classroom.
“When college students are placed into an environment where they have to explain relatively complex ideas to younger minds, their knowledge of a subject is tested,” says Bovard. “Teaching opens up a whole new perspective on what you think you already know.”
Engineering for All
National Engineers Week is about promoting engineering education, and a major component of that outreach is geared toward female students, who are underrepresented in many engineering disciplines.
The Thursday of every National Engineers Week is designated as Girl Day. To celebrate, BridgeValley Community and Technical College hosts its annual Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day at the Columbia Pipeline Group building in Charleston.
Girl Day, as it has become affectionately known, brings in eighth-grade girls from schools throughout Southern West Virginia to work on engineering projects, meet with other students who hold similar interests and connect with women who are currently studying or working in engineering fields.
Dr. Kimberlyn Gray, assistant professor of chemical engineering, coordinates the WVU Tech’s STEM and engineering outreach programs. She says WVU Tech students and faculty are always excited to be a part of Girl Day because attendees often discover opportunities they never knew existed.
“We want to introduce them to engineering as a career, but this is also a chance for these girls to meet women in engineering who come from a variety of backgrounds and hold a tremendous range of interests outside of engineering,” says Gray. “They’ll see that you don’t have to be a particular type of person to be an engineer.”
When that Spark Catches
National Engineers Week ends on Saturday, February 27, but WVU Tech’s outreach efforts will continue in the weeks that follow.
On February 29, fifth graders from Chesapeake Elementary School in Kanawha County will visit the Montgomery campus for a day of career exploration in many fields. They’ll meet with engineering, nursing, biology, computer science, political science and athletics faculty to discover career paths, conduct experiments and learn how the upcoming presidential election works.
“A lot of the research that covers driving interest in STEM fields—particularly in engineering—shows that if you don’t capture their attention by the fifth grade, you lose students. They lose interest,” says Gray. “That seems very early to us, but having a spark of interest catch at that age can help these students figure out what they really want to do later.”
“When we provide fun, educational activities, they can see what potential STEM fields have for their futures,” says Bovard. “That’s the real joy—bringing to light all the opportunities every child has, regardless of gender or race or background.”
In early March, Gray will visit Tolsia High School in Wayne County. She and her group will teach biology students about gel electrophoresis, a method of separating DNA fragments using electricity; conduct experiments in the chemistry class and discuss the wide range of career options open to physics students.
“High school students are in a different situation,” says Gray. “They know they’re good at math or science, but they don’t necessarily know what engineers do. They don’t know what the different disciplines within engineering involve. We all know what doctors, police officers and teachers do because we see it every day, but engineering is often a very behind-the-scenes field. Events like this give them an opportunity to interact with college students in these fields and find out how their interests connect to these different disciplines.”
Celebrating Our Engineers
To mark this year’s National Engineers Week celebration, WVU Tech will also be featuring the stories of students and alumni from various engineering disciplines throughout the week. These features will include WVU Tech students and alumni in the fields of electrical, mechanical, civil, chemical and computer engineer as well as computer science.
The series explores where these engineers are from, what got them interested in the field, their favorite projects and where they see their industries heading in the near future. WVU Tech is introducing students like Felipe Sozinho, who grew up in Brazil and came to the school to play soccer and change the way the world is powered. WVU Tech is also sharing the stories of alumni like Lori Shaffer, P.E., who monitors the quality of natural gas in some 15,000 miles of pipeline stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to New York.
You can meet amazing engineers like these all week long at wvutech.edu.
About the Author
Zachary Carrier is the communications manager for West Virginia University Institute of Technology, where he works with students, faculty and staff to share stories of their successes, research and outreach. Carrier holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Shepherd University and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in integrated marketing communications from West Virginia University.
