girl scouts of the colonial coastGirl Scout Ambassador Evelyn recently earned her Gold Award by completing a project she titled, “EngineerKids!” She created a website and workshop curriculum aimed at students K-5 that details six major branches of engineering: aerospace, chemical, civil, electrical, mechanical, and nuclear while highlighting female engineers throughout the series.
“The low numbers of women in engineering stems from the lack of exposure in their developmental years,” she said. “If girls are not exposed to the field when they are young, they will be more likely to dismiss it as a viable career option.”
Her website discusses, in detail, each branch of engineering and provides concept quizzes for students to test their knowledge at the end of each module. In each section of the online curriculum, there is an interview video with a female engineer in each of the six fields that goes along with the concepts learned.
Evelyn hosted two in-person workshops where she gave a presentation followed by hands-on projects for the elementary-aged students to explore the different fields in her community. She also created workshop kits with ten experiments inside and distributed the materials to area schools including Isle of Wight Academy.
“Lack of women in STEM is a national issue,” she said. “Women make up only 28% of the workforce in science, technology, engineering and math (American Association of University Women). My project not only seeks to educate children in the field of engineering, but also, through the interviews, expose elementary and tween girls to real-life women engineers.”
Families can access her free resources online at engineerkids.org.
