Fall 2019 Girl Powered Workshop

 Middle and High School students participate in Femineer® event to celebrate International Day of the Girl

The San Diego State University’s Women in Engineering & College of Engineering Femineer® Program recently hosted a Girl Powered Workshop, on the evening of Friday, October 11, 2019 in celebration of International Day of the Girl. The free event, in collaboration with the Robotics Education & Competition Foundation and hosted by the San Diego Amazon Web Services campus, gave 40 middle and high school students, along with their parents and chaperones, the opportunity to learn from and engage with women in the STEM industry, all while learning about their company or organization and participating in hands-on STEM activities. During the workshop, students were divided and assigned to their first station and a timed rotation system ensured everyone the opportunity to participate in a total of eight informational stations. Throughout the event, students were tasked with creating a cost efficient water filtration system, constructing a paper structure to withstand significant weight, utilizing industrial walkie talkies, understanding air and how it correlates to chemistry, weather, and aerodynamics, and more, all while learning how these small-scale activities contribute to the work done by scientists and engineers.

Participating organizations included Motorola Solutions Inc., SDG&E, T.Y. Lin, Science Delivered, The Energy Coalition, Carollo, and NAVAIR. Femineer® mentors and SDSU engineering students, Daisey Lynch (Electrical Engineering) and Nicole Hurtado-Savin (Civil Engineering), also hosted a station where students coded and worked with Ozobots. As a result of the positive feedback and enthusiasm from students, parents, and industry, the SDSU Women in Engineering & Femineer® Program plans to host a similar event in Spring 2020.