Future Engineers
By the time girls hit junior high school, they've started to feel peer pressure to eschew science.
"This is an age where girls often start to get turned off to math and science," says Linda Weavers, Ohio State's John Geupel Chair in Civil Engineering.
"Girls don’t want to be seen as being nerdy or geeks," Weavers says. "Everybody wants to be the cool kid. And it’s just often in media and perceptions that engineering and science is not a cool subject. So we’ve got to change that."
Weavers is doing her part: She runs the Future Engineers Summer Camp for girls entering eighth grade. "They're just more comfortable when it's all girls," she says.
The goal of the camp, currently in its fifth year, is to get female students "excited about math and science," Weavers says.
It works, thanks to creative activities like making hovercrafts and field trips, including a stop at Nestle, where the girls got to make--and taste--chocolate.
"At the end of the camp," Weavers says, "girls tell me, 'I met people that are like me.'"
Related links:
Ohio State College of Engineering
Women in Engineering at Ohio State
Biographies of Women in Math, Science, and Technology - from the Ohio State Libraries
