by Jessica Swenson and Kerrianne Marino
The Girls Design and Engineering Week workshop focuses on engaging girls in engineering through hands on activities emphasizing robotics, building, and making. This past summer, two workshops were held at the CEEO. The first week was comprised of a group of returning attendees that began with seed funding as a gift from Verizon in the summer of 2012. Of the five freshman and sophomore high school girls in attendance this year, three have attended the workshop for four summers and two were returning from the previous year. This annual workshop continues the research started by the gift from Verizon and remains a space to try out new activities and technologies around the CEEO.
The second week was added to the CEEO summer workshop series in summer 2014. High interest in all-girls STEM workshops prompted the addition of this week. This workshop was comprised of 24 fourth through eighth grade girls. This workshop utilizes past successful activities as well as new activities developed during the summer prior to the workshop.
We design activities with two main goals in mind. First, to introduce girls to new technologies around the CEEO. Second, to create activities with rich contexts (aka stories) and users. We know from past experience and research underrepresented populations in STEM engage in tasks focused on users over problems with little context or specific users.
With the addition of the makerspace to the CEEO, we utilized the new laser cutter to teach girls about a tool engineers use in the workforce. For the larger and younger workshop, we had each girl draw their name and a design to cut onto a nametag to use for the week.
For the older and more experienced workshop, we tasked the girls with creating their own game board, clock, jewelry holder, or anything else they could think of. In addition, we asked them to expand their previous experience on the 3D printer to design game pieces or clock hands to create something very personal.
The second type of activities we created were those with a rich story or context. After helping with a Novel Engineering lesson in a local classroom based around the book City of Ember, we created a similar activity with the focus on creating devices for the employees of the city in the book. After reading the first chapter of the novel, students drew the job they would design for out of a hat. In the picture below, students are designing a system to aid the messengers deliver their messages more effectively.
The second user centered project that was the biggest hit with all the girls was a challenge we received from Tufts Vet School. The challenge revolved around Abby, a dachshund with paralyzed back legs. The girls were asked to design a device that would help Abby do normal dog activities such as running, swimming, going for walks, going to the bathroom, and moving around the house.
Both Girls Design and Engineering Workshops were successful this summer and we look forward to continuing to design activities with a focus on users, context and new technologies.
