Exploring Interests In Technology And Engineering At The University Of Puerto Rico Mayaguez

EXITE! (Exploring Interests in Technology and Engineering) was a summer camp sponsored by IBM Corporation, the Chancellor’s Office and the College of Engineering of the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez Campus (UPRM), designed to introduce girls from middle schools from the western area of Puerto Rico to the engineering and technological fields. The students participated in workshops applying scientific and engineering concepts, as well as on hands-on experiments in a laboratory environment. The workshops were designed to expose participants to engineering and computer sciences and to provide participants better understanding about the concept of working in teams, making hard engineering decisions, ethical behavior and problem solving. During these workshop activities, the students had the opportunity to interact with faculty, laboratory technicians, young professional engineers, scientists, and undergraduate and graduate engineering students who shared their experiences with them. A major component of EXITE! was a creativity and design competition. All these activities made EXITE! a way to make engineering come a reality as a career option for the girls. Assessment of the camp indicates that it was highly successful and had a great impact on the participants and their parents. Index Terms – K 12 programs, summer camps, team activities Introduction EXITE! (Exploring Interest in Technology and Engineering) was a summer camp designed to introduce girls from middle schools to the engineering and technological fields. The main objective of the camp was to motivate girls early in their life to select and pursue careers in engineering or computer sciences. This was accomplished by exposing them to the engineering and computer sciences through a series of enhancing, unique and interactive activities. This paper presents the EXITE! Camp at the University of Puerto Rico Mayagüez (UPRM). This camp was sponsored by IBM Corporation, the Chancellor’s Office and the College of Engineering at UPRM, and was held during the week of July 16 to July 20, 2001. The camp had a total of 20 students, all girls from elementary and middle schools of western area of Puerto Rico. The camp ran from 8:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.. Most of the activities were held in the Industrial Engineering Building. The budget for the camp was $10,000.00.