Engineering—It's for Girls Too!

February 19, 2003

By Marion F. Swan and Ellen Christie, staff writers

	Tomorrow's computer engineer
	Female engineers are key mentors for today's girls.

From the moment we open our eyes in the morning to the time we go to sleep at night, engineering touches our lives. Engineering is an exciting, dynamic, and varied field. Agricultural engineers design the processes that put food on our table, civil engineers design and build bridges and tunnels, and electrical engineers light up our world.

Let's Celebrate Engineers

Girl Scouts of the USA partners with several other organizations to celebrate National Engineers Week February 16-22, 2003, and Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day on Thursday, February 20. Sponsoring organizations include the Society of Women Engineers, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. A goal of Girl Scouts of the USA is to encourage girls to become interested in and excel in math, science, engineering, and technology as a way of preparing them for the workplace of the future.

Girl Scouts across the country celebrate engineering all year long.

Come One, Come All to the Science Camp Expo

Girl Scout organizers in New Mexico are joining the YWCA, New Mexico Department of Labor, Boys & Girls Clubs of America, Lockheed Martin, and Sandia National Laboratories to sponsor the first Summer Science Camp Expo. On February 22, this event will recruit science camp providers. At the Cottonwood Mall, kids and their families will get hands-on experience experimenting with magnets, explore the black hole of the universe with Silly Putty, and engage in structural engineering using marshmallows and toothpicks.

A New Use for Styrofoam Peanuts

Also on February 22, Girl Scouts will find out how many paperclips it takes to actually sink a Styrofoam peanut. This will be just one of many activities at Engineering Expo 2003, presented by the Society of Women Engineers at Wichita State University. Joining with students from the Wichita, Kansas, area, Girl Scouts will dabble in such disciplines as aerospace, biomedical, chemical, civil, computer, electrical, geological, and mechanical engineering. In addition to sinking that Styrofoam peanut, they will get a chance to build a bottle rocket, create their own volcano, and take a computer apart and rebuild it.

Whatever Your Age, We Have an Activity for You

You are never too young or too old to explore the wide reaches of engineering, and Girl Scouts of the USA provides a wealth of programs to assist you. Volunteers are trained in activities to help girls develop a love for math and science. Five-year-old Girl Scouts play games to practice scientific inquiry skills like predicting and observing; tween Girl Scouts learn the role of bearings in machines and figure out how doorbells work; teenage Girl Scouts experience real-life lab research work, develop computer programs, and dabble in aviation engineering. The Girl Scout program today is keen on math, science, and technology. Please visit the Girls Go Tech Web site at www.girlsgotech.org for more information about getting involved.