Making Engineering Appealing for Girls: Programmes for Grades 6-12

摘要

The Rochester Institute of Technology's Women Engineering programme (WE@RIT) has developed a continuous series of outreach programmes to stimulate an interest in engineering as a career for girls in grades 6-12. Events include: Park and Ride, a 6th and 7th grade amusement park design programme; Expanding Your Horizons, an 8-10th grade engineering and science conference; the SWE Overnight and Shadow Programme, an introduction to Engineering at RIT for 11th grade women; Colleges and Careers, a summer recruiting workshop for 12th graders; and WE@RIT Weekend, a three-day experience for young women who have been accepted to RIT, but who have not yet decided whether or not to enroll. In addition, WE@RIT has developed and piloted several travelling engineering activity kits (TEAK) to bring engineering experiences to students unable to come to campus for an organized workshop. Although these programmes are still new and limited, long-term survey data have been collected; preliminary results show that the activities do help girls to take a broader view of what engineers do and portray RIT as a friendlier engineering campus.