Impact of “Imagineer Day”, an Outreach Program, on K-8 girls and Women in Engineering

The Society of Women Engineers at California State University, Chico developed an educational outreach program to promote Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) to K-8 girls in 2012. Since then, every year over 200 local K-8 grade students are invited to participate in multiple hands-on labs that demonstrate basic science and Engineering concepts. The goal of the outreach program is to get young girls interested in STEM fields, particularly, Engineering. For the past six years, not only had the program managed to introduce Engineering to young girls, but it has also provided a unique opportunity for undergraduate female Engineering students to develop communications and leadership skills. Also, the program has allowed students from several Engineering organizations (Latinos in Technical careers LTC, National Society of Black Engineers NSBE, American Society of Civil Engineers, Women in Science and Engineering WiSE, and Mathematics Engineering Science Achievement MESA) to work together as teams and organize activities and labs. This collaboration between SWE and other clubs and organizations in the college helped in promoting diversity and inclusiveness in respect to gender, ethnicity, age, and discipline. Introduction and Motivation While the number of women in certain STEM fields, such as biology, chemistry, and math, has increased in the last decade, it had declined in Computer Science and Engineering [1]. The US Department of Commerce has published an updated study of Women in STEM in 2017 as part of a series of reports examining the STEM workforce and its gender dynamics. The study showed that the distribution of women and men in STEM majors has persisted to differ significantly in the workforce since 2009. As shown in figure 1, 59% of women who chose STEM field majored in physical life science while only 31% of men majored in the same field. On the other hand, women’s representation in Engineering and Computer Science was less than half those of men’s. [2] [3]. Figure 1: College-educated workers by STEM degree, 2015 [2] Similarly, the number of women earning degrees in Engineering and Computer Science has ranged from 18-19% in a recent study conducted by the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES) in 2017 [4]. Although these numbers have increased in the past 20 years, women’s participation remains well below that of men in all fields of Engineering. Additionally, a decline in the number of women enrolled in these programs has been recorded in the years between 2004 and 2014, as shown in figure 2. In fact, the number of female students in the College of Engineering at Chico State has been at a record low of less than 10% for many years. Figure 2: Women earning Engineering and Computer Science degrees by year, 1995-2014 One of the main reasons, as explained by several female students in our Engineering program, was "not having been exposed to STEM growing up." Many research studies support this statement when outlining the factors that influence young girls’ interest in Engineering and Computer Science [5] [6] [7] [8]. Studies show that the low representation of women in STEM fields is a result of several factors including, but not limited to, lack of role models, insufficient exposure to STEM subjects, and gender stereotypes [7]. Studies also show that the retention rate in Engineering and Computer Science programs is higher in male student population than that of females [3]. Addressing the underrepresentation of women in STEM fields has been the focus of many researchers for the past 20 years [9]. Studies suggest that approaches to promote STEM to young generations should not focus only on the development of knowledge and skills during school hours, but should also incorporate talent development through after-school programs and outreach events starting at an early age [5]. However, majority of STEM outreach programs in the United States target middle and high school students, with little-to-no emphasis on elementary school students [10]. Based on a literature survey, Barnes in [10] suggested that there 17.3 20.5 19.8 28.5 25.1 18. Engineering Computer Science is a national need to establish outreach programs that target girls at an early age, particularly elementary school before they distance themselves from STEM [11][12]. In 2012, a group of female Engineering students at Chico State founded the first K-6 grade outreach program "Imagineer Day" in the "institution region." The program's goal was to get young girls interested in Engineering through engaging them in “hands-on” activities pertained to different Engineering disciplines. Since it started, the program has grown and received national recognition. The study in this paper focuses on evaluating the effectiveness of our outreach program, taking into consideration the following aspects: 1. The influence the outreach program has on young girls’ perception of Engineering as a career for women 2. It’s effectiveness in promoting STEM to young female students 3. The impact it has on female Engineering students Imagineer Day Overview Imagineer Day is an annual one-day outreach event founded by the SWE section at Chico State in 2012. This one-day event creates an opportunity for the participants to engage in hands-on lab experiments that demonstrate basic Engineering concepts in its multiple disciplines. Each participant joins in four different lab experiments based on grade level, Kindergarten through 8 grade. The participation in the event is open to both genders with a metered 90% attendance of girls. The solemn purpose of this event is to not only advocate and introduce STEM-related activities to the attendees but to capture the interest of girls at an early age to seek a route in STEM as they progress through their lives. Imagineer Day will be holding its sixth annual event in the year 2018. The event takes 7 hours to complete, during which all groups, except 7-8, spend the day rotating between labs with 29-30 kids per lab. Each lab activity lasts for 50 minutes and introduces the participants to a different field of Engineering. As an alternative, the 7-8 groups participate in all-day robotics activity. Table 1 outlines a typical schedule for the lab activities throughout the day. Table 1: Imagineer Day activity schedule 4-6 Time Activity 8:00 8:50 Registration 8:50 9:05 Welcome Ceremony 9:10 10:00 Lab 1: Civil Engineering “Earthquake in Classroom” 10:10 11:00 Lab 2: Electrical Engineering “Sound and Frequency” 11:10 12:00 Lab 3: Mechanical Engineering “Fluid Mechanics” 12:10 12:50 Lunch 01:10 01:50 Lab 4: Mechanical Engineering “Rubber Band Car” 02:10 02:50 Closing Ceremony Each lab introduces different Engineering discipline and is taught by SWE officers, SWE members, or students from other Engineering clubs. SWE provides lunch, snacks, a themeoriented t-shirt and a goodie-bag filled with school supplies to all participants, including volunteers. All students participate in a closing ceremony to conclude the event. Additionally, the 7-8 group displays their completed robotic projects in a showcase. Figure 3 shows a sample lab from all age groups, Kinder-3, 4-6, and 7-8. A sample lab activity is provided in the Appendix A. Figure 3: Imagineer Day 2017 Results and Analysis The purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact the outreach event has on K-8 graders, particularly girls, as well as undergraduate female Engineering students. In this section, we represent the data collection method, data analysis and results from each group segment. Part A: Undergraduate Female Students A survey was administered to students who have been involved in organizing and running the outreach event for a year or more. The students cover most disciplines of Engineering, including Electrical, Computer, Mechanical, Mechatronics, Civil and Computer Science. The first part of the survey consisted of 6 questions and was constructed to evaluate the event’s effectiveness in developing the following skills [7]: (A) leadership skills (B) understanding of Engineering concepts (C) self-confidence (D) communication skills (E) presentation skills (F) time management skills Students were asked to rate the level of impact that the outreach event had on their lives using a scale from 0-5, where 0 represents (no impact), and 5 represents (significant positive impact). A total of 20 students participated in the survey some of which have already graduated from the program. As shown in figure 3, the quantitative part of the survey results indicates that outreach has a significant impact on most of the respondents (77%-93%) in all areas. Time management skills were the most influenced area followed by communication skills. 7% of the students felt the event had no impact on their understanding of engineering concepts. Figure 4: Outreach impact on areas A-F in scale 0-5 ("0" no impact, "5" significant positive impact) In addition to the personal assessment portion, the survey contained a free response section. In this section, students were asked to reflect on their view of the importance of the outreach event, in correlation to self-development, society, and education. I: Outreach and Personal Skills Students indicated that outreach helped them develop and enhance their communication skills, public speaking skills, self-confidence, teamwork and leadership skills. The majority of the respondents mentioned communication as one of the most developed skills. “Public speaking and communication skills. I'm a communication minor and communication isn't so important in everything in life...and unfortunately, most engineers aren't noted for their communication skills. So outreach helps build these skills and show employers that you are a responsible human and not a robot doing work." Another significant benefit was the development of time management skills. The planning for the events starts immediately following the preceding event. Of