| Alumni
in the Spotlight
Girl Scouts experience “hands-on”
engineering and science
 Thin
mints -- and cow hearts -- were sacrificed for science when Girl
Scouts came to Clemson to get the skinny on engineering. “Introduce
a Girl to Engineering and Science Day” is now in its fourth
year.
The
hands-on outreach program is part of Clemson’s observance
of National Engineers Week. The workshop is sponsored by Clemson’s
Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) program, Clemson’s
nationally-recognized Center for Advanced Engineering Fibers and
Films and Girl Scouts of the Old 96 Council.
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Girl Scouts got a little
hands-on experience at the “Introduce a Girl to Engineering
and Science Day.” |
“The
goal is to expose young females to career options in engineering
and science and to demonstrate how engineering and science affects
their everyday life,” said Serita Acker, coordinator of Clemson’s
WISE program. “There is still a belief that boys invent things,
and girls use things boys invent. Females must be a part of the
design teams who are reshaping the world if the world is to fit
women as well as men.”
Less
than 10 percent of the engineers in the United States are women,
said Acker. But, Clemson is bucking that trend with WISE, a mentoring
program that offers female undergraduates one-on-one support. Nearly
a quarter of undergraduates in Clemson’s College of Engineering
and Science are women.
Workshop events covered topics like:
• Building bridges with cookie boxes
• Mixing chemicals to create a shampoo. Sudsibility
was tested on a hair-styling head.
• Conducting ‘open-heart surgery’ on cow
hearts
• Conducting forensic science activities related to
fibers and films
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