February 17- 23 was National Engineers Week, an annual celebration for the field of engineering and week dedicated to educating others on the contributions on engineers worldwide. Each Engineers Week, there is a special day devoted to encouraging girls to explore engineering. Women make up only 10 percent of the engineering profession and are significantly underrepresented in engineering collegiate study programs. “Introduce a Girl to Engineering” Day was created to help further awareness for the lack of women in the field.
Louisiana’s TIMED Program is working to better transportation routes and enhance economic development around the state of Louisiana. But what good are these benefits if Louisiana’s children grow up and move away and never get to experience what TIMED has brought to the state. Educating children and showing them the real-life applications of important careers helps them make choices and decisions that can keep them here, in Louisiana, and keep them contributing to our state.
On behalf of the TIMED Program, LTM spent Engineers Week working with Baton Rouge public middle schools, specifically 7th and 8th grade girls. The goal was to talk to the girls and help them understand that engineering is not just for boys and is far more than math and science – all notions that studies have found are believed by teen girls. Teaching the children about corporate responsibility was another benefit to the week. Explaining to the students that we were there because we wanted to be there and because it was important to our company helps instill good citizenship and showing the value in volunteering and mentoring. Skills that are just as important as those taught by textbooks.
By the end of the week, more than 400 girls had been introduced to engineering. They heard a real-life female engineer tell them of the challenges of being a woman in a male-centric field, but also the rewards of an exciting, well-paying career in engineering. They watched a video teaching them how engineers can create clean water for children in other countries who do not have the luxury of clean water in their homes and schools. And then they were able to visualize how engineers have fun – by playing the wood block game, Jenga. A game that could not be more appropriate for a group of future female engineers as the game was invented by a woman and was named for the Swahili word for “to build”. As the activity began, the towers were to represent a bridge tower, similar to the ones that will be holding up the new John James Audubon Bridge near St. Francisville. The students were to test the strength of their towers by removing blocks and engineering the tower to be lighter, less expensive and visually appealing. As the towers began to fall, the girls realized what engineers go through when they are testing for wind strength, weight loads and forces of gravity – sometimes a design doesn’t work.
As we crowned the Jenga Queens each day, I realized the importance of our effort went far beyond the hour we were given with the girls that day. In just 60 minutes, we helped show the girls the power of teamwork and application of knowledge. And the true meaning of “Girl Power”. In pre-surveys the girls often indicated they did not think they liked engineering as it related to building things. And yet Jenga showed them they can build things, engineer things and it could be fun.
As we were leaving one of the schools, the effort was made whole when a student came up to me and said “Thank you for this. I really think this is something I want to do.” Mission accomplished.
The “TIMED 2 Explore Engineering” website is available to all students and discuses how to become an engineer and what engineers do. Visit www.timedla.com/explore to show your teen the world of engineering. LTM will be furthering the campaign in fall 2008 as education programs are scheduled for public schools along TIMED routes.