The idea behind Girl Scouts Day is to give girls a chance to try their hand at engineering while matching them with female role models working in the field, said Serita Acker, director of Clemson University’s Women In Science and Engineering (WISE). This year, the girls learned about chemical engineering by comparing two types of laundry detergent, one with enzymes and the other without. They also built a water purification system with sand, gravel, cotton balls, coffee filters, rice and plastic water bottles.

Girl scouts using RC cars to learn about friction on different surfaces

In order to teach the girls about mechanical engineering, WISE collaborated with the CA2VES mechanical engineering team members Dr. John Wagner, Thomas Wang and Mike Fu, as well as Dr. Kapil Chalil Madathil from CUCWD to design a short one hour course on fundamental mechanical engineering concepts. The girls learned about concepts of friction, and then applied that knowledge through operating remote control cars with various wheel types and on different surfaces (pictured to the right).

As part of a civil engineering lesson, girls used K’Nex toys to build and test replicas of some of the nation’s most iconic truss bridges.

Some of the role models came from Lockheed Martin, a long-time partner in Girl Scouts Day, said Leslie Farmer, a spokeswoman in the Greenville office. “We know firsthand the importance of educating our young people in math and science,” she said. “Our future success — and our nation’s technological advantage — depend on a constant supply of highly trained, highly capable technical talent.”

“We’re involving our Girl Scouts in this program for the 15th year because we want to make sure girls have the opportunity to explore education and career opportunities in STEM fields”
“We recognize the disparities between males and females,” said Meika Samuel, STEM manager for Girl Scouts of South Carolina-Mountains to Midlands. “We’re involving our Girl Scouts in this program for the 15th year because we want to make sure girls have the opportunity to explore education and career opportunities in STEM fields.”

Girl Scouts Day is one of several programs organized by WISE to support females in engineering and science from elementary school to the university level. The group also puts together recruitment days for high school juniors and seniors and summer camps for middle school students.

“Employers understand that diversity makes for a more creative, competitive and innovative workforce,” Acker said. “To ensure the next-generation workforce includes all voices, we need to recruit and retain underrepresented groups. Programs like Girl Scouts Day will help us send more females into the talent pipeline and to rewarding careers in engineering and science.”

1 With a goal of 99 percent, 98 percent of SC high school students now have electronic Individual Graduation Plans.

2 With a goal of 85 percent, 80.1 percent of SC high school students had on-time graduations in 2014.

3 With a goal of 80 percent, 75 percent of all school districts are eligible to serve at-risk children in full-day 4K programs.

4 With a goal to be in the top 5 states, SC’s national ranking for NAEP score improvement1 in 2013 versus 2011 shows that for 4th grade, reading is unchanged at 39th and math dropped to 39th from 37th. For 8th grade, reading rose to 36th from 38th and math rose to 31st from 34th.

5 With a goal of 5 percent reduction of the student achievement gap for PASS testing, 2014 analysis for 3rd through 8th grades revealed the writing gap has widened; the ELA, science and social studies gaps have narrowed; and the math gap has remained unchanged.

6 In an effort to require all SC high school seniors to have a WorkKeys® certificate, all 11th grade students must take the WorkKeys® readiness assessment.

7 2013-14 yielded impressive growth granting 8,713 GED diplomas, 862 high school diplomas and 10,240 WorkKeys® certificates. SC’s goal is 15,000 GED’s awarded annually.

8 SC has 678 apprenticeship programs (up from 190) and 5,446 active apprentices (up from 1,500), with 10,400+ total apprentices served.

9 With a goal to exceed the national average for adults holding 2- or 4-year degrees, 2011 US Census data states 34.2 percent of SC’s adults hold 2- or 4-year degrees, 4.5 percent below the national average.

10 A brief setback has occurred for SC’s goal of having a clear, coherent standardized pathway for adults to further their education in 2013 due to lack of funding. The Council on Competiveness’ Connect Adults Committee has been enlisted to help identify a new approach to fulfilling this goal.

See full article here.Footnotes: 1 The National Assessment of Educational Progress.

For more information or to get involved, contact Robbie Barnett, associate vice president of workforce, education and manufacturing policy, at 803-255-2625 or robbie.barnett@scchamber.net.