Published: November 07, 2008 11:20 am      

High school girls build bridges to future careers

BLUEFIELD — Sheryl Crow may sing about building bridges, but a group Mercer County girls interested in engineering actually did it Monday.

Sixty ninth-graders left their high school classrooms and headed to Bluefield State College, where they took part in Girls’ Day in Engineering. There, Mercer County Technical Education Center’s Linda Cox said they enjoyed a career exploration session, a workshop on robotics and a challenge to build the strongest bridge out of toothpicks and marshmallows.

“They’re all looking at careers in engineering. Of course, that’s why we’re here too,” Cox said, explaining that fewer than 20 percent of the engineers working in America are women.

“There’s a shortage of engineers anyway,” she said. “There is a huge demand for them, but there aren’t enough graduates coming out of the programs.”

In an attempt to drive students into the tech-savvy careers, school officials created WomenTech, a school-based program that encourages women to seek out careers in mathematics and science, particularly focusing on engineering. From that, Girls’ Day in Engineering was born.

“It really makes me wish I was back in high school and had all the choices that girls do today,” Cox said.

Rebecca Bergin is a civil engineering major at Bluefield State who was working with the high school students as they literally stuck their bridges together.

“I think this is wonderful,” she said.

Recalling her own days in high school, Bergin said her dream was to be an Air Force pilot, but the adults she encountered encouraged her to find other goals since she was both a girl and wore glasses.

Today, as she looks forward to a career in engineering, Bergin said she knows the girls who built model bridges Monday can create the real thing alongside her in the future.

“I know they can do it. You can do anything you really want to. That’s what I always tell my daughter, and I’ll tell these girls too,” she said. “It’s really staggering to know that there aren’t very many of us out there in the field, and I think it’s a fabulous field.”

Kayla Perkins, another BSC student majoring in engineering, hoped Monday’s activities piqued the high school students’ interests in the arena.

“I don’t think any one field should be dominated by anyone, male or female,” she said.

WomenTech Academy offers girls in Grades 9-12 the opportunity to participate in a week-long summer workshop and presents a Saturday session every three months during the school year. Some of the unique academy activities have included:

• Discover Chocolate, in which students discovered how many different types of engineers are involved in making the sweet treat.

• Underground Mining Experience.

• Punkin Chunkin Experiences, during which students built a trebuchet and hurled pumpkins across the MCTEC parking lot.

• Nascar Experience, which focused on the engineering of the Bristol Motor Speedway and a chance to ride around the track.

• A tour of the FBI center in Clarksburg.

• A tour of the Marshall University Biotechnology Center.

Each academy activity involves education and hands-on experiments to keep students’ attention. For example, after the academy students reviewed the chocolate-making process and identified engineering opportunities, they tried their own hands at making s’mores.

“We really just want to let these girls see the opportunities that are out there for them, and there’s really a lot of earning potential in engineering-related fields,” Cox said. “Our job is to prepare the workforce for businesses, and this is one way we try to meet that need.”

— Contact Tammie Toler at ttoler@ptonline.net