On most days, few females can be found in the Warnock Engineering Building at the University of Utah. But, for one evening last week, the building was overrun by Girl Scouts.
The university's Society of Women Engineers (SWE) chapter and the Girl Scouts of Utah partnered for Girl Scout Engineering Day, an annual event meant to get girls jazzed about pursuing careers in the male-dominated world of engineering.
"You might wonder why we have a Society of Women Engineers, and we don't have a Society of Men Engineers," said Cynthia Furse, professor of electrical and computer engineering and a former Girl Scout, to the assembled girls. "I will tell you, today, with all these girls here -- there are about 120 of you -- there are more girls in here in this building than there are at any time the rest of the year. We don't have very many girls that go into engineering, and those that do are very special, and so we're hoping that more of you will come and join this special group."
The Girl Scouts, grades four-12, split into age groups and learned about prosthetics, 3-D imaging, bridges, circuits, robots, and more from the university's female engineering students. The older girls, known as cadets, got to play with an electromyogram, which measures electrical activity in muscles. They hooked electrodes to their arms and watched zigzags appear on a screen as they contracted their muscles.
"Wow! Cool!" exclaimed Girl Scout and sixth-grader Mason McMahon as she flexed her biceps. "It's cool to learn about different things. I liked learning about prosthetic legs. I thought that was really cool, because just this last year, my cousin -- he's 8-- he had cancer and he had to get a prosthetic leg because he had a tumor and they had to cut his leg off."
Said SWE chapter president Charli Brown, "They genuinely like to learn. That's the best part about this night. They're interested. They have a real interest in how stuff works."
Gaby Jensen, a U. sophomore majoring in biomedical engineering and a member of SWE, loves teaching younger girls about her passion. She led the class detailing how prosthetic limbs are made.
"I didn't get an opportunity like this," Jensen said. "I didn't have somebody talking to me about engineering, so it's really cool to get to give back, and show them what I get to do."
Jensen, who said there are usually about five or six women in her engineering classes of 50-60 students, also participated in last year's Girl Scout Engineering Day.
"I had so many people asking me, 'What can I do now? What can I do to get started?'" Jensen said. "It's been really awesome to be able to say, 'You're a couple years away from being where I'm standing. This is totally in your reach.'"
Girl Scout Nora Boyle agrees. Both her mother and father are engineers, and she's thinking about following in their footsteps, but she's still in sixth grade and she's not sure.
"I'll at least take one engineering class in college," Boyle said. "Not too long ago, there was a lot of separation between men and women. Now women can be engineers if they want to."
