Introduce a Girl to Engineering

Introduce a Girl to Engineering day is a program where we bring in 8th grade girls from local middle schools and try to inspire them to pursue degrees in math and science.  I've been volunteering for this event the last four years and have always had a wonderful time.  It is always exciting to share what I love with young girls in the hopes that they might consider engineering as something they would love.  It is hard for me to imagine not knowing about engineers as the majority of my family is engineers but these kids come from areas where they don't have the exposure and opportunities I did growing up.

Below are the things we did this year with all 180 girls.

Listening to the opening speaker.  This is just half of the girls.

Team Challenge: Domino Boat
The girls were tasked with building a boat from tin foil,
popsicle sticks, straws and tape that would hold as many
dominoes as possible.  The winning boat held 45 dominoes!

Plastivan
This is a great demonstration on plastic and other petroleum
based projects.  Its hard to tell but the girls are sticking
skewers through the balloons without popping them.

Science on Stage by the Houston Museum of Natural Science
This woman has been doing this show for us for at least the
last four years.  She always does and excellent job and the
girls love it!  Here a girl is dipping a flower in a container
of liquid nitrogen.

We send all the girls off with a goody bag of trinkets.  This is just
one of the three schools group of girls.  It was another great year!