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Harnessing girl power
All-girls engineering club newest part of STEM
Friday, Nov. 6, 2009
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photos by DARWIN WEIGEL
Calvert Middle School students, from left, Lauren Roth, 13, Katie Rider, 11, and Julia Roth, 11, stretch a balloon over a soup can to make an atmospheric pressure gauge Tuesday at an all-girls engineering club.
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As part of the national Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics of STEM Education Coalition being enforced in Calvert County public schools, Calvert Middle School in Prince Frederick has started an all-girls engineering club for grades 6 through 8.
This is the first time such a club has been started in Calvert County and, if successful, it will also be in Southern Middle School in Lusby next year, said Calvert Middle math teacher, Karin Stewart, who is the club's faculty representative.
In addition to herself, engineer Karen Lane of the Patuxent River Naval Air Station in Lexington Park, serves as a liaison between the club and the air station, Stewart said.
"Because engineering has been a male dominated career path … this club was intended to introduce women to the idea of engineering," said Stewart, adding, "A lot of times they envision an engineer as an older man who builds bridges."
Lane said that the club, which meets on a weekly basis, was intended for middle school students as "that's the time when girls start to think about careers."
She said that she and Stewart try to have women engineers as weekly guests, "to see that they have families and that engineering can be a great career for a woman."
Lane explained that she viewed this first all-girls engineering club as a test case to see what type of reaction it would get from students. So far she said the club, which has about 30 members, has been a success.
"[The reaction] has been very good; they're really excited," Lana said of the club members.
On Tuesday, Karin Hill, the director of education and public programs for the National Museum of the United States Navy in Washington, D.C., was the club's featured guest and taught the girls how to make a barometer out of a soup can, a balloon, a sewing needle and a straw.
"I thought we'd put together an engineering project that might save your lives one day," said Hill, who explained to the students that if they were to get lost while camping, the barometer's response to pressure would give them a sense of the weather headed their way.
Eighth grader Hannah Aris said she decided to join the club after participating in Calvert Middle Schools "Lego League," which is also part of the STEM initiative.
"All the experiments are fun, but last week we did something with lasers and music, and that was really fun," Hannah, 13, said.
Olivia Deibler, a sixth grader at Calvert Middle School, said she always viewed engineers as people who "invented things."
Olivia, 11, said she ultimately decided to join the girls engineering club because, "I really like after-school clubs, and I'm really good at math and I thought it would be fun."
So far, she said the club has yet to let her down.
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