The goal of Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day is to increase girls’ interest in engineering in a supportive and enthusiastic atmosphere, while highlighting how much fun a career in engineering can be. While the COVID-19 pandemic prevents us from meeting in person, we’ve found a way to bring some of the high points of the day to all of you at home: this year, Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day is virtual!
For this year’s virtual engineering fair, students are invited to watch a keynote speech, explore different types of engineering, do an engineering activity from our library of suggestions, and participate in a virtual “Ask an Engineer” panel. We hope you’ll join us, or spread this information on to friends or family who would appreciate it – read on for more information!
While we’re doing this as part of our Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day, the activities are appropriate for students of all genders. In addition, while the activities we’ve led in the past have focused on middle- and high-school students, some are also appropriate for grade-school students, so we encourage students of all ages to check out these resources!
Ways to Participate
1. Watch a “keynote” video about being a woman in engineering
Watch one (or all three!) of our favorite online videos about how engineering improves the lives of people, and how engineering is a great field for women.
Dream Big – Meet the Women Engineers: This three-minute film shares stories from women engineers who are making the world a better place.
Inspiring the next generation of female engineers: In this 17-minute video, Debbie Sterling talks about how she pursued her passion for engineering and founded GoldieBlox.
Pushing Boundaries – Women in Engineering: This five-minute video shares stories about how engineering is all around us.
We recommend these videos for students of all genders, since understanding the experiences of women in engineering is important for everybody.
2. Learn about different types of engineering
Engineering is about problem solving, and there are dozens of different types. After reviewing some of the most popular fields of engineering on the two websites linked below, students should think about which area sounds most interesting to them. What about that field sparks their interest? If they were to enter that field, what types of projects would they most want to work on?
3. Choose an engineering activity to do
Our website has a library of activities that students have enjoyed at past Introduce a Girl to Engineering Days or other STEM events we’ve run; the page also includes links to other websites with great activities! We encourage students to complete one of these activities this week (we recommend checking the materials list first to make sure you have everything you need), then tag Nitsch Engineering if you post a photo on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. We’d love to see what you do!
4. “Ask an Engineer” about their experience
One of the most popular parts of our annual Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day is the panel of female engineers who answer questions about how they got interested in engineering, the types of projects they work on, what engineering school was like, and what it’s like to actually work as an engineer. To bring this to students at home, five of Nitsch Engineering’s female engineers are excited to participate in this year’s “Ask an Engineer” panel on Facebook and Instagram. We invite students (or their parents or teachers on their behalf) to post their questions as comments on the Facebook or Instagram posts dedicated to this panel by 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday, April 22nd. Panelists will answer each question and we will post a compilation with all questions and answers on Friday afternoon, April 24th.
Update, April 24th: Our panelists have spoken! Check out their answers to questions about what it’s like to be an engineering student and work in the industry here!
We hope you’ll join us to celebrate Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day this week – and we hope the resources in this email are helpful to parents and teachers over the next few weeks as well!