Engineers Week celebrates STEM with one million girls

Every year, Engineers Week’s Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day (IGED) is filled with lab tours, interactive discussions, open houses and online events. The event serves as a way to introduce over one million girls to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) careers.

This year’s campaign, #BringitOut, is using social media to influence leaders to optimize the potential of Women in Engineering. The campaign will include videos of engineering women from various disciplines. These engineers will outline their experiences in an effort to pique the curiosity, teamwork, creativity, opportunities and help needed to reduce the engineering gender gaps.

Fortunately, the push to reduce the gender gaps in engineering have been successful in many circles. However, more work is still needed to get girls into engineering academic paths if we wish to achieve true equality.

This February 26^th will mark the 14^th Annual Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day. The event runs in the middle of Engineers Week, which starts February 22^nd. This year’s event will raise the bar by including a Capitol Hill briefing to non-profits, corporations and politicians.

Rep. Daniel Lipinski (D) from Illinois will host the Capital Hill event for Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day. The Women in Engineering event will include speakers from the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE); the University of Texas, Austin; and Argonne National Laboratory.

Many other organizations will also take part in local Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day events. Some of these organizations and events include:

• The University of Texas will host over 4000 girls interested in STEM education.
• Raytheon will host 29 events across 12 states with Boys & Girls Clubs of America. The events will shine the light on potential career paths, experiments and female engineering role models.
• ExxonMobil will host 50 girls at their Dallas headquarters to meet a top female engineer and participate in building activities. Eight local schools will also have similar activities.
• Rockwell Collins will host events in the US, UK and Brazil. The Iowa event will match 100 girls with role models to learn about career paths and build prosthetic arms.
• Science with Engineers Inc. will host 100 girls from the Academy of the Sacred Heart. Students will learn about Newton’s Laws and how they relate to automobile safety and design.

Source DiscoverE.