Attracting Girls to Engineering

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Attracting Girls to Engineering Technology
Mid-Atlantic Section Conference April 25th 2009

• Frank Lanzer, P.E.Associate Professor,
• Engineering Engineering Technologies

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Presentation Content

• About me
• The challenge
• Data to support approach
• What we did
• How it went
• What worked and .What could have been better
• Resources

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Thats my story, and Im sticking to it!

• Frank Lanzer, P.E.
• B.S., Electrical Engineering, United States
  Naval Academy M.S., Business Administration,
  Boston University M.S., Electrical Engineering,
  University of Maryland Major, United States
  Marine Corps (Retired)
• Teacher and Business Department Chair (7
  years)
• Founder and Director, Academy of Information
  Technology
• Reader, AP Computer Science (8 years)
• Seventh year at AACC. Department Chair next
  year
• 2008 NISOD Award for Excellence in Teaching

Now, why are you here?
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The Challenge

• Increase knowledge and experience of Girls in
  fields of engineering and technology
• Counter the misconceptions and doubts of their
  own potential that may tarnish images of success
• Emphasize importance of math and science

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How we sought to meet this challenge

• Over a seven-year period, technical summer
  camps have opened the eyes (and minds) of many
  pre-teens and teenagers so they can become what
  they want to be

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How we got here

• 7 years ago
• we started camps focused on technology, for
  girls only Tech Camp for Girls. After 6 camps
  we decided to offer a camp for both boys and
  girls but keeping the two groups separated for
  activities where the boy-girl interaction might
  be distracting.
• We first envisioned this activity as an
  Imaginary Worlds Camp, pioneered by Joel Adams of
  Calvin College, using Alice. Joel strongly
  recommends keeping girls and boy separate in
  these camps because of the different ways they
  view creativity and social interaction.

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How we got here

• In the beginning
• There are not enough women enrolled in
  technology based programs at AACC - - whats up
  with that??

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The National numbers..
The dwindling percentage of female undergraduates
continued this past year. Only 18.1 percent of
engineering bachelors degrees went to women in
2006-2007, the lowest share since 1996. Female
enrollment remained virtually unchanged from last
year at 17.5 percent. This is significantly lower
than the total student body, where women comprise
58 percent of enrolled undergraduates. It is also
the lowest percentage since the mid-1990s.
Interestingly, women pursue graduate
engineering degrees at a higher rate.
Michael Gibbons, Engineering by the Numbers,
accessed online http//www.asee.org/publications/p
rofiles/upload/2007ProfileEng.pdf
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The National numbers..
Michael Gibbons, Engineering by the Numbers,
accessed online http//www.asee.org/publications/p
rofiles/upload/2007ProfileEng.pdf
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The AACC numbers..

• Data from AACC technology programs
• Female Enrollment in Technology Programs from
  2003 - 2007

FACULTY 3 WOMEN 4 MEN
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The AACC numbers..

• Data from AACC technology programs
• Female Enrollment in Technology Programs from
  2003 - 2007

FACULTY 1 WOMAN 3 MEN
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The AACC numbers..

• Data from AACC technology programs
• Female (Fall) Enrollment in Technology Programs
  from 2003 - 2007

FACULTY 14 WOMEN 13 MEN
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So, why was this happening??

• We asked these questions
• Why are women not enrolling in these programs?
• What is it about programs that is NOT attractive
  to women?
• How can we change this trend?
• Again, this is how we beganGirls-only to
  address a very well identified need. What we
  learned applies to both girls and boys.

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Research led us to emphasize girls

• boys invent things and girls use things boys
  invent.
• a cyberspace culture will inevitably reflect
  the desires and sensibilities of males to the
  exclusion and often denigration of females.
• Jane Margolis and Allan Fisher, Unlocking the
  Clubhouse Woman in Computing

If you have not read this, then you should ?
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The Phenomenon

• Girls at 9 or 10 are feisty, filled with spirit
  and confidence, but as puberty hits, they begin
  to pull within themselves, doubt themselves,
  swallow their own voices, and doubt their own
  thoughts.
• Jane Margolis and Allan Fisher, Unlocking the
  Clubhouse Women in Computing

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Our Mission

• To introduce girls and boys to the technology of
  today in hopes that they will get involved and
  impact the technology of tomorrow. Emphasize
  middle school!

Last years camp, TechnoSleuth, sought to provide
experiences while retaining the uniqueness of
each sex.
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Remember.the purpose

• When we went down this trail we had two goals.
  This guided our choices of classes, instructors,
  methods and materials.
• Introduce new technologies not only as gadgets or
  cool things to do, but useful tools
• Emphasize the importance of math and science to
  the discovery and development of those new
  technologies

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How we did it.

• And you know what they say about The Plan
• Five camps (3 middle school, 2 high school)
• Middle School Tech Camps for Girls
• Middle School Robotics Camp (G/T)
• High School TechnoSleuth
• High School Engineering and Technology
• One or two weeks, M-F, 9-4 contract Anne
  Arundel County Public Schools in 2009

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What we did.

• What worked
• Digital photography Analog vs. digital, sensing
  color/brightness, A-to-D conversion, storage,
  color depth and resolution related to bytes
  storedSoftware Serif PhotoPlus 6, Photoshop,
  Picasa (free 2008)
• Webpage design Networks, WWW, size vs. time to
  retrieveSoftware HTML (2004), FrontPage
  (2005-6), Serif WebPlus (2007), Dreamweaver and
  Flash (2008)
• Visual Programming Sequence of execution,
  objects, physics of motion Software Alice
  (2005-8)

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What we did.

• What worked
• Cryptography and Cyberforensics probability,
  statistics, frequency tables, patterns,
  cryptograms. How to extract information and data
  from computer storage media and guaranteeing its
  accuracy and reliability. Steganography. WebHex
  (hex editor).

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What we did.

• What worked
• Design and Construction strength of materials,
  structures that support. Physics problem
  challenges. Software West Point Bridge Design
  Project, Armadillo Run, Google SketchUp! (ALL 3
  Big Winners!)

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What we did.

• What worked
• Hands-on Activities bridge building,
  egg-carriers, solar cars, trebuchets, LEGO
  Mindstorm NXT robots, geocaching, cyberforensic
  crime scene

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Free Software .

• Alice http//www.alice.org/
•  
• Sketch Up http//sketchup.google.com/
•  
• Sketch Artist http//flashface.ctapt.de
•  
• Cryptograms http//teppo.tv/cryptogram/
•  
• Audacity http//audacity.sourceforge.net
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• Armadillo Run http//www.armadillorun.com
  (the demo is free, comes with limited games, the
  full version is 19.99 at this time, author will
  give free to schools)
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• West Point Bridge Design http//bridgecontest.us
  ma.edu/
•  
• Picasa http//picasa.google.com/
•  
• JPHide/JPSeek Steganography Hiding pictures
  or text files within pictures http//www.freewr.c
  om/freeware.php?downloadjphide-and-jpseeklid258
  
• With the exception of Dreamweaver, we tried to
  use software that students ortheir parents could
  download and use for Free.

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What we did.

• What worked
• Field trips One day was dedicated for a field
  trip to a technology-related site for every camp.
  
• The National Cryptologic Museum is a vast,
  interesting resource operated by the National
  Security Agency at Fort Meade, Maryland.

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What we did.

• What worked
• U.S. Naval Academy
• Presentations on solar power and the Academys
  entry in the SOLAR SPLASH - The World
  Championship of Intercollegiate Solar Boating
• Hands-on demonstrations in the Center for
  Biometric Signal Processing

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What we did.

• What didnt work so well
• PC Hardware Most of the girls were not
  interested in how PCs worked. They mechanically
  disassembled/reassembled the machines without
  significant learning
• Concrete garden pads Risk of reaction to
  concrete dust and latex gloves. The girls enjoyed
  the activity however the theory of chemical
  reactions was a bit too advanced and just not
  exciting
• Survivor Challenge (competition using all of the
  skills learned) While this was of interest to a
  few of the girls, most did not like competition
  and working under pressure. The two hours allowed
  is now better used for a new skill
• Guest Presenters This is one of those Catch-22
  situations where you want women in industry to
  share experience there is always the danger of a
  presentation that way over the their heads or
  just not of interest. This can work but requires
  extra care.

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Gender Issues

• Due to far fewer girls enrolling in the
  TechnoSleuth Camp than boys, we had to mix one of
  the groups. Five girls and the eight youngest
  boys (5th graders) were grouped. The other group
  was all boys (grades 6-8).
• We rediscovered some differences between boys
  and girls ?

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Questions?
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a warm thanks and gratitude to all for attending
todays presentation on Attracting Girls to
Engineering Technology Reach them before
they're turned off
Mid-Atlantic Section Conference April 25th 2009

• Frank Lanzer, P.E.Associate Professor
• Engineering Engineering Technologies

This paper and presentation are available online
athttp//ola3.aacc.edu/fplanzer