Planning Approach for the Society of Women Engineers Mentoring Girl Scouts

摘要

Utah State University College of Engineering is actively working on recruiting and retaining women in engineering. This project is one that combines the two toward affecting both goals at once. The Society of Women Engineers (SWE) section at USU has organized a mentoring system with the local Girl Scout council. The primary idea is a top-down mentoring approach where activities are designed and run by women and girls that are a step ahead of the participants. In this way, each group is "paying back" the mentoring to the next lower level. The USU student SWE section runs a mentoring program to help Cadette and Senior Girl Scouts (middle and high school girls) earn an interest patch related to science and engineering. Engineering professionals mentor the SWE engineering students and provide a panel discussion for the older scouts. Theses older Girl Scouts then join the SWE section in running a Badge-in-a-Day Engineering clinic for Junior Girl Scouts (grades 3 through 6). In this way, the elementary school girls are introduced to the fun aspects of science and technology, having a good time while sampling hands-on projects. The middle and high school girls learn about science and technology more in-depth by working directly with the SWE members on their projects, then having the opportunity to teach what they have learned to the younger girls. The SWE members become involved in reaching out to the next generation of potential engineers. When the SWE members become active in helping others learn about science and engineering, they are more likely to feel camaraderie with their peers, mentoring each other, and thus are less likely to feel isolated and drop out of engineering. Thus, by this tiered mentoring approach, we are recruiting the younger girls into potential engineering careers and working to retain the college level women in their engineering programs.