Orlando Conference Encourages Girls to Pursue Tech Careers

 

The workshops and labs were a hit at the 21st annual "Expanding Your Horizons" on March 31 at University of Central Florida (UCF).  The annual event is designed to motivate young women to pursue science and mathematics-oriented careers. Some of the girls learned how to make the numbers change on a digital clock while others made miniature hovercrafts with a balloon, water bottle cap and a compact disc.

 

"You never know if you could be an Olympic luge sledder, unless you try it," said event co-organizer and civil engineer Joanne Kiriazes. "It's the same with these girls; they'll never know if they can be engineers. This project is like a launching pad."

 

About 250 students from middle schools in several counties near Orlando and 100 parents attended the conference. "We tell them, don't be afraid of the circuit board. Just try it,'" put in co-organizer Jackie Sullivan, also a civil engineer. "We have quite a few financial sponsors, and one of them said, 'Tell those young ladies we want to hire them someday.'"

 

Currently, it's clear that men continue to dominate the engineering industry but with 500,000 domestic shortages in the field, and only 13 percent of the jobs filled by women (according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics) female engineers are trying to get the word out to the next generation about high-paying, respectable jobs that are fun and very rewarding for not only the engineer but society as a whole.

 

Linda Flannery, a computer engineer, says "There's no way a student can come here and do these hands-on things, with all the workshops being women-led, and not see herself doing it, too. They need to be empowered."

 

Paula Stenzler, an engineering manager at Universal Studios, was the keynote speaker this year. Ms. Stenzler exemplifies what's "cool" about being an engineer. She was involved in the commissioning of attractions such as Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk and Men in Black - as well as managing design changes in Cat-in-the-Hat and Dueling Dragons -"It's really exciting. When you realize that there are women in engineering, working on the scene and doing calculations, as well as being up front and doing presentations, it really empowers these girls to think, 'I can do that.'" said Flannery. "Seeing other people, you get kind of re-energized. We say, 'What do you want to be? You can be anything you want to be, and don't let anyone tell you different.'"

 

UCF's College of Engineering and Computer Science (CECS) hosts the yearly conference that helps turn dry theory into hands-on projects during morning workshops.

 

In an aerospace engineering workshop, the girls played with ping-pong balls to learn about Bernoulli's Law. In an electrical engineering workshop, they used a solderless breadboard to build electrical circuits, studying a two-color LED and learning the additive properties of light. An industrial engineering workshop meant studying different types of assembly lines to make paper airplanes. In the civil engineering workshop, the girls used architect's scales to build a house of spaghetti noodles and marshmallows, and even got to take the scales

home to draw plans of their own rooms.

 

 

During the afternoon sessions girls toured labs led by UCF professors and graduate students, such as the Institute for Simulation and Training, where UCF students learn to blend computer science, digital media and storytelling to create interactive experiences; and the Center for Advanced Transportation Systems Simulation, where scientists are working on ways to make traffic planning and operation smoother and safer, in a high-tech kind of way.

 

"Hopefully after the conference, they'll look at their iPods and cell phones and realize that engineers made those technologies possible," said Jamal Nayfeh, Associate Dean for Academics in the CECS. "Currently, less than 20 percent of students in undergraduate engineering programs are female. We want them to see that many women are engineers."

Several seventh-graders from Stonewall Jackson Middle School came out of the conference with a newfound respect for engineering.Naivette Henriquez, who is in the AVID program, returned to the conference for the second year. Algebra is her favorite subject, and she plans to be a forensic scientist when she grows up. "I liked the aerospace workshop. We learned how air pressure works, and had to blow hard enough to make the balloon go certain ways. It was fun."