UMaine ‘Girls’ Night Out’ to Show Middle-Schoolers that Science, Engineering Isn’t ‘Nerdy’
Contact: Joe Arsenault, 581-3048, John Vetelino, 581-2264, George Manlove, 581-3756
ORONO — UMaine’s College of Engineering is bringing some 30 Bangor middle school girls to campus on Wednesday, Jan. 23, for a pilot project — “Girl’s Night Out” — to let them see that science and engineering aren’t necessarily “nerdy.”
“Right now, some of the real exciting and new stuff that is being done crosses so many disciplines,” says electrical and computer engineering professor John Vetelino, who brought the college’s GK-12 Sensors! program to UMaine in a partnership with the National Science Foundation in 2002-2003. Young people should realize that science and engineering careers are the front line of invention, and can be fun.
“Math, science and engineering is relevant,” Vetelino says, “and not such a nerdy field.”
Sensors, in particular, he says, play major roles in every day life. Sensors come large, small and microscopic and are in smoke, sound and motion detectors. They also are used to detect disease, e coli or even a toxic gas or the ripeness of fruit.
“They can be oriented toward health or they could be oriented toward national defense,” Vetelino says.
The after-school event Jan. 23 will bring a select group of about 30 seventh- and eighth-grade girls from Bangor’s Cohen and Doughty middle schools to UMaine to participate in a variety of activities to stimulate interest and aspirations in science, technology, engineering and math career paths, according to Vetelino and Joe Arsenault, who manages the GK-12 Sensors! program on campus.
The students will meet at 3:30 p.m. in Hill Auditorium, ESRB-Barrows Hall, to begin a tour of UMaine’s research facilities and then will be greeted by college Dean Dana Humphries and UMaine Women’s Basketball Coach Cindy Blodgett, before meeting for panel discussions with women scientists and faculty engineers, in addition to graduate students and undergraduates. After a pizza dinner and social hour with the panelists, the girls will head to the Alfond to watch the women’s basketball team take on Boston University.
The emphasis of the “Girls Night Out” project is on girls, Vetelino says, since women are significantly underrepresented in math, science and engineering fields. The National Science Foundation and the United States Congress are among the entities concerned that the United States has fallen behind other nations in science and engineering, and they created programs like the UMaine GK-12 Sensors! to bolster the nation’s ranks of young scientists and engineers. Vetelino says boys will be invited to campus for a similar event in the future, as will youngsters from cultural groups.
Vetelino says experience has shown that youngsters at the middle-school level are particularly susceptible to learning about math, science and engineering, especially before they get to high school, when they may have decided upon an academic direction.
“The message, loud and clear, is we need to get to these students when they are young,” he says. “We also have found that students are influenced by a mentor, a parent or a peer.”
So, in addition to seeing the university engineering and research labs, the visiting girls will interact with role models like women scientists and Blodgett, who is expected to encourage her audience to aim high with respect to goals for their futures.
“We wanted to spice up the program,” he says, explaining why the pizza social and basketball game, and Blodgett, are part of “Girl’s Night Out.”
“Girl’s Night Out” is sponsored by National Science Foundation-University of Maine GK-12 Sensors! program, the University of Maine College of Engineering, the University of Maine Department of Athletics and the Bangor School Department.
Since 2004, more than 550 Maine school students have visited the university’s high-technology laboratories.