2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Careers in engineering help a person to both contribute toward solving problems in society and environment and live independently with available work. Nevertheless, a disproportionate number of females have not entered careers in engineering. One factor for the low participation may be insufficient exposure to compelling engineering activities at an early age. As a response, many educators and activists have initiated STEM activities for younger women to engage in, and potentially increase their interest and likelihood to pursue engineering pathways. One example is a STEM Day for Girl Scouts that has been organized at our university for several years. Girl Scouts STEM Day is a program to help 4th or 5th grade students explore STEM activities and learn some of the engineering fields. The event first started at our university in 2014 with 30 students and has grown to 57 students in 2024. Since 2014, around 500 girl scouts have participated in the skill-based workshops and hands-on projects.

The one-day program started with a team building, active experience followed by inspiring speeches by women leaders in their careers. Then the students break into small groups and rotate through five different STEM workshops: Biomedical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, Computer Science, and Science. There was about forty-five minutes for each workshop. Descriptions and observations of the five workshops are presented in this paper. The Biomedical Engineering project involved building circuits using temperature and ultrasonic sensors to explore how they can be applied to the design of medical devices. The Electrical Engineering project involved an LED Dexterity Challenge. The Manufacturing Engineering project had the students manufacture a miniature Bowling Pin. The Computer Science project had the students build a mBot robot by using Scratch programming language. The Science project used the characteristics of biological molecules such as color, fluorescence and fluid properties to diagnose disease. A survey was conducted to collect data right after the students completed each workshop to evaluate the content of the workshop. 497 members participated in the STEM program and took the survey in the past ten years. The survey showed 96% students enjoyed Biomedical Engineering project, 95% students enjoyed Electrical Engineering workshop activity, 94% of the students enjoyed Manufacturing Engineering, 96% students enjoyed Computer Science, while 98% of the students enjoyed Science. Students reflected that they would like to participate in more STEM related activities in the future.