(372a) Women: Women's Outreach In Materials, Energy, and Nanobiotechnology

WOMEN: Women's Outreach in Materials, Energy, and Nanobiotechnology

Susan Daniel

School of
Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

Cornell
University, Ithaca, NY 14853

For the past two years,
the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Cornell University
organized and hosted a successful pilot outreach event, called WOMEN (Women's
Outreach in Materials, Energy, and Nanobiotechnology),
to foster rural tenth-grade girls interest in STEM and introduce their parents
to the university and career options for their daughters. Twenty families
visited our campus for the day. Students ran short experiments or activities designed
and organized by graduate students (Figure 1) while their parents learned about
engineering careers and planning for college. In the second year, we also
integrated a student-parent laboratory module, based on feedback from parent
surveys in the prior year. We received overwhelmingly positive feedback on the
program from parents and student participants in both years. All parents said
they would attend this kind of event again and felt that it broadened their
view of engineering. Parents commented that the information provided gave them
an important early start in planning for college and knowing how to encourage
their daughters to plan for a technical career. All 20 students felt that the
program broadened their view of engineering and 17/20 stated they would
consider an engineering career after the program. In this paper, I will provide
an overview of the entire program, highlight several experiments we ran with
the students and parents, and discuss detailed feedback from students and
parents. 

Figure 1. WOMEN outreach program hosted by the Cornell School of Chemical
and Biomolecular Engineering. (A) Graduate students present the objectives of
the parent-student lab to the families. (B) Parents and students engaging in
the joint activity. (C) A mother-daughter team at work. (D) A student enjoying
the activity.