Links
- Subscribe to Celeste's Blog
Formerly known as the Engineering Education Advocate
|
|
Archives
Books by Celeste Baine
|
Engineering Principles Teacher's Guide |
|
Engineering Graphics Teacher's Guide |
Aeronautical Engineering Teacher's Guide |
|
Civil Engineering Teacher's Guide |
Teaching Engineering Made Easy: A Friendly Introduction to Engineering Activities for Middle School Teachers |
The Musical Engineer: A Music Enthusiast's Guide to Engineering and Technology Careers |
The Fantastical Engineer: A Thrillseeker's Guide to Careers in Theme Park Engineering - Second Edition |
High Tech Hot Shots: Careers in Sports Engineering |
Is There an Engineer Inside You?: A Comprehensive Guide to Career Decisions in Engineering |
The Intel Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF)
Every year, I try to follow The Intel International Science and Engineering Fair news. The kids that enter are amazing! Students have a chance to dream and create big ideas like: a better way to get fresh water to victims of natural disasters, a way to help the blind and disabled access the Internet, or illustrate ground-breaking mathematical theory. According to Intel, these innovations, and more than a thousand like them, are on display every year at the fair, a global celebration of scientific excellence.
The Fair was held in Atlanta in May. Competing were 1550 students from 51 countries. There was more than $4 million in scholarships and prizes. This year, more than 20 percent of the young scientists and engineers either had or had applied for a patent for their work.For 2008, the top three $50,000 scholarships were awarded to females! Last year, the top three awards went to males.
To read about their amazing projects, check out the press release.
My last two blog posts, Nerd Girls and A Different Approach to Recruiting were also about girls succeeding in engineering. Maybe the tide is turning. Maybe all the study on recruiting, retention, learning styles and learning environments are paying off. Maybe all the funding for girl-centric STEM programs are reaping some rewards. The future for women in engineering looks bright but there are still many hurdles to clear. If you are leading a STEM program for girls, I hope this blog post gives you the acclaim and motivation that you rightfully deserve. Keep up the fight so the rest of us can read about your success, cheer you on and reap the benefits that more women in engineering will bring to the marketplace, society and the planet!
--------------
PBS and Design Squad
A few years ago, when Design Squad first came out, I was so excited that finally, I could watch a show about kids doing engineering on TV! It was like a dream come true…kids, engineering and fun, right here in my own house. As the premiere date was approaching, I wanted to know what time to assemble the entire family and plop down in front of the tube. As I scanned the TV Guide listings for PBS, I couldn’t find Design Squad at all. After a little investigation, I found out that it simply wasn’t going to air in Eugene. What???? Can they really do that? Eugene is the second largest city in Oregon, surely there was some mistake? Unfortunately, there was no mistake. PBS here says that the demographics of this area indicate that the people are not interested. As you can imagine, by that time, I was pulling my hair out because I was so very interested.
Time passed and suddenly, I really wanted to see the show again. However, this time, I was successful in seeing it because I found it on iTunes. I had to pay $1.99 per episode but that was much easier than waiting for the PBS station here to change their mind about airing it. And, I could watch it on the airplane.
If you aren’t familiar with Design Squad, I’d suggest that you surf on over to http://pbskids.org/designsquad/. Design Squad is a reality competition show aimed at kids and people of all ages who like reality or how-to television. Its goal is to get viewers excited about engineering and the design process. Over 13 episodes, eight high school contestants tackle engineering challenges for real world clients-from creating cardboard furniture projects for IKEA to designing a gravity bike (no pedals or cranks!) for Extreme Game champion Tom Whalen. The series has free engineering resources you can use in classrooms, afterschool programs, and event settings to get middle school kids excited about engineering.
If you are interesting in working with students to promote engineering, you’ll also be interested in the:
- Design Squad Activity Guide: The Activity Guide features five hands-on challenges that can be used in ongoing programs and events. It also includes leader notes, discussion questions, and answers. It offers anyone running afterschool programs, workshops, or events engaging, effective ways to get kids thinking like engineers.
- Design Squad Educator’s Guide: Geared to afterschool programs, this resource provides four multi-session engineering challenges that you can use with 5th to 8th graders over a 10-week period.
- Design Squad Event Guide: Complete with five hands-on activities developed for use at events, this guide contains tips, reproducible handouts, and evaluation forms that will help you plan and organize your event from beginning to end.
PBS' Design Squad is offering kids at home a chance to get in on the action: the Trash to Treasure Competition challenges kids to take everyday discarded or recycled materials and re-engineer them into functional products. The grand prize winner will receive a $10,000 cash prize provided by the Intel Foundation and a trip to the development lab at Continuum, an award-winning international design and innovation consultancy, to build a prototype of his or her Trash to Treasure design.
The competition runs April 1 – August 31, 2008 and is open to legal residents of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia, and US territories and possessions, who are between the ages of 5 and 19 (and not have graduated high school) at the time an entry is submitted.
For more information, go to: http://pbskids.org/designsquad/contest
--------------
K-12 Engineering Curriculum Award
Motivating students to become engineers comes in many forms. One form that will be awarded and recognized by the K-12 Engineering Curriculum Award is curriculum writing. If you are a teacher and write inspiring hands-on, real-world engineering curriculum, you can get recognized, win $1000, get a trophy plus receive an all expense paid trip (up to $1500) to NSTA, ITEA or ASEE for your outstanding contribution! This is a rare opportunity to show-off your talent and let your voice be heard on an International playing field. Don't delay. The deadline is October 15, 2008 and that will be here before you know it. Apply for it today! http://teachengineering.org/award.php
--------------
The Cost of Title IX
I read an article today about federal agencies setting up programs to look for sexual discrimination at Universities receiving federal grants. Title IX, the law forbidding sexual discrimination in education has been limited mostly to sports. But now, under pressure from Congress, some federal agencies are targeting science. In short, if your university is receiving grant money, the government can step in to insist that you have a certain number of women professors/researchers in the ranks.
According to the New York Times article, A New Frontier for Title IX: Science, “The reviews so far haven’t led to any requirements for gender balance in science departments. But Christina Hoff Sommers, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute who has written extensively about gender wars in academia, predicts that lawyers will work gradually, as they did in sports, to require numerical parity.
‘Colleges already practice affirmative action for women in science, but now they’ll be so intimidated by the Title IX legal hammer that they may institute quota systems,’ Dr. Sommers said. ‘In sports, they had to eliminate a lot of male teams to achieve Title IX parity. It’ll be devastating to American science if every male-dominated field has to be calibrated to women’s level of interest.’”
The enforcement seems great when you think about an “old-school” type of situation where highly qualified and deserving women haven’t been welcomed by the gate-keepers. A workplace full of bias and very low hanging glass ceilings.
However, the enforcement doesn’t seem so good when you think about this in terms of a successful young researcher, losing his position because the university had to hire a woman. The enforcement also doesn’t consider that the women hired may not be wanted which creates an environment where no one, males or females, are productive. Nevermind the fact that it marginalizes women by implying that they can’t compete and need a helping hand.
In engineering school you learn to solve problems first by analyzing it to determine the root of the problem. Is government regulation the solution to this problem? The first step should be to determine if women really want equal parity in engineering departments and how was this determined? If they indeed want it and are qualified, are they able to get it? Is there data to support the findings? If women make up 20 percent of the engineering workforce, should they be granted 50 percent of the jobs? It’s my assessment that the government may be trying to force a solution to the wrong problem. Asking if women want equal parity in an engineering department may seem like a no-brainer but if the department has no role models and is a lonely, limiting, and uncomfortable place to work, why would any woman aspire to be included? Especially when we know that intelligent, resourceful women have the world in the palm of their hand and therefore, also have many choices. I personally know of many women that left engineering school because of poor advisers, a lack of women friendly programs and a lack of mentors. Let’s start with the environment to make it more equitable and desirable and then we can consider Title IX.
To read the article, go to: http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/t/john_tierney/index.html