Female students in Grades 7-10 will have the opportunity to explore the exciting world of engineering at Go ENG Girl, a free one-day workshop full of fun hands-on activities and information sessions for parents.
“Go ENG Girl is a fun opportunity for girls to meet others who share similar interests,” explains Lesley Mounteer, University of Western Ontario Engineering’s associate director (external services) and Western Go ENG Girl co-chair. “We have been participating in this province-wide event for six years now and every year we are thrilled to see interest grow.”
More than 1,000 girls are expected to participate in Go ENG Girl at 11 locations across Ontario. Western anticipates 100 girls, and their parents/guardians, will attend the event in London Oct. 16.
Western’s event will have an international theme this year with hands-on activities such as making a water filtration system and constructing a waterproof roof. The keynote talk will be delivered by fifth-year engineering student Lauren Hockin, who recently returned from a summer in Malawi, a southeast African country, where she worked as a junior fellow with Engineers Without Borders.
“Females typically lean toward working in professions that help people and engineering is often dismissed as a career option in this regard,” Mounteer says. “We hope our activities and speakers this year will show the participants engineering truly is a helping profession. Go ENG Girl 2010 will show the girls, first-hand, how engineers work everyday to make a difference to our environment and quality of life, both in Canada and abroad.”
More than 3,000 young women have attended Go ENG Girl over the past five years. Feedback shows the support of parents and teachers, combined with the opportunity to meet women in the field and student peers who share similar interests, has inspired participants to consider engineering as a program of study or job choice.
At Western, female enrolment in undergraduate studies is approximately 18 per cent.
Register for Go ENG Girl at ospe.on.ca/goenggirl/.