I just had the privilege of speaking to eight special young ladies (elementary school aged) who were brought to UH by their teacher to talk to them a little about engineering and science.
My main example was, of course, the balloon research science I am currently doing right now!
Attached here is the slideshow presentation I showed them:
They were very curious girls and had lots of questions for me, which I was very happy to answer. I wanted to make it clear to them I had been a little girl just like them, and that in many ways I still am. I talked about what I love to do and what I like to learn about, and that I got into engineering so I could solve problems.
I didn't talk about math, and I didn't use the word science except maybe twice the entire hour I was speaking to them.
Instead, we had a two-minute dance party to finish off my presentation to the requested song of, "Everything is Awesome!" from the Lego Movie.
I taught them how to do the UH "Whose House?" chant. I talked to them about engineering, and how it's in space, underneath our feet, and even inside of our bodies. They had wonderful feedback for me, such as, "Do you think that the Earth is kind of like an engineer, um, because it helps people to live?" to which I thoughtfully responded that yes, yes I do think the Earth is kind of like an engineer.
Some were very talkative, others needed to be coaxed. Some of them didn't know what they wanted to do, one wanted to be an archaeologist, and another wanted to be an actress when she grew up.
By the end of the talk I mentioned that I do this even with high school kids, and since I had talked to them a little about what Industrial Engineering was, they might know more than some high school students!
I talked about how college was a hard four years to commit to and that deciding to do so was important and felt really good to be near the end of graduating. And I mentioned that engineering classes won't leave you feeling bored by the end of it, because you will always be learning something new. Most of them responded very strongly to that - they don't like being taught things they already know!
I brought a few props: namely, my prototype breadboard and the "in package" prototype that I purchased from http://www.auroralchorus.com/wr3gx2.htm . I told them that I would be finding ways to listen to the light from the aurora borealis. That got them pretty excited.
And I noticed, it got ME pretty excited too. I'd never really thought about what I was doing in that way before. From the big picture viewpoint, what I'm doing is incredibly exciting, and I don't think 10 year old me would have ever guessed I would *REALLY* get a chance to do this.
What a wonderful opportunity! I am so thankful I got to be a part of teaching those girls a little bit about the big world of engineering.
I am hoping to follow up with the same group of students after we come back from Alaska, so I can show them some of the results of what we did.
