On Thursday, March 24, LU College of Engineering was proud to host the return of ExxonMobil’s annual Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day to 8th grade girls in the Beaumont Independent School District.
ExxonMobil’s Women’s Interest Network and LU’s Society of Women Engineers volunteered to expose BISD girls to different engineering fields. Multiple science stations were set up with specific focuses in mechanical, civil, and chemical engineering.
The event started off with ExxonMobil’s project engineer Taylor Hines facilitating introductions, followed by Jennifer Dunphy, Beaumont chemical site manager, who gave the keynote speech. Dunphy introduced these young women to what engineering can be and sparked inspiration to the girls about what path in engineering they may want to take in the future.
“What engineering takes is the ability to solve problems and hard work,” Dunphy said. “All of you have what it takes to be an engineer!”
Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day brought in over 60 girls who were broken up into three groups and rotated between different project stations. These tasks included civil, mechanical and chemical focused projects to visualize how engineering can be found in everyday life. They built tall dry spaghetti marshmallow buildings, created mechanical engineering projects to show how to use stored potential energy in making a catapult and used the chemical properties used in crafting a rubber bounce ball.
“This event was awesome to be involved in for the first time in three years. All of our SWE volunteers were excited to participate and look forward to doing it again next year,” Britney Sumayah, president of SWE, commented. “Watching girls who never had an interest in STEM before work through the challenges of these projects and truly enjoy it, gives me hope that their interest will only continue to grow.”