This paper on a successful , non-traditional event held at Nortel in Ottawa for some grade 10 female students. The paper was presented at the Eleventh Canadian Conference on Engineering Education. The conference was held between Sunday July 5, 1998 and Tuesday July 7, 1998 at Dalhousie University.

Abstract

Eighty-nine grade ten female students from Sir Robert Borden High School attended a special event at Nortel in February 1998. They were involved in a hands-on building project (a Pinocchio nose), heard a presentation on career choices, played a game by crossing a radio-active swamp and visited Nortel laboratories. A survey of the impact of the event on the students revealed that this was a very successful program. A majority of them felt that they now knew a lot more about science and engineering, will sign up in science courses in grade 11, and 40 percent said it had an impact on their choice of a career. The school confirmed that 89 percent of those who attended the event actually signed-up for advanced level science courses. The event will now be offered to one hundred female students from rural areas in Western Quebec and Eastern Ontario in the fall.

1. Introduction

A research endeavour looking at whether science promotion programs make a difference (Vickers et al., 1995) reported that the impact varied not only by program, but also by gender. Results of that study indicated that the strongest positive impact on girls came from a single-sex program called GIRLS IN SCIENCE. Many of the mixed gender programs to promote science had a stronger impact on boys than on girls. Of the almost 1600 students surveyed in that British Columbia study, 44 % of the young women indicated that Medicine was their career choice, versus 26 % of the young men. In the same survey, 4 % of the women versus 20 % of the men chose Engineering as a profession. Another study (Frize, 1998) reports that the impact of a science and engineering summer camp for young students in grades 5-8 was highly successful for both genders. That program was designed in such a way to attract an equal number of girls and boys, and the activities were designed with both groups in mind.

These studies lead the authors to design a particular event in the Ottawa/Carleton region for grade ten female students. A post-event evaluation was done and the results are reported here. For a few years, Nortel had sponsored a yearly event, with the help of teachers and guidance counselors of Sir Robert Borden School, consisting mainly of job-shadowing activities with groups of two to three students accompanied by a woman scientist or engineer at Nortel. In 1997, both the Nortel staff and the students felt somewhat disappointed with the results. At this point, the authors of this paper and an engineering student from the University of Ottawa, Shanta Ramshandani, met to revisit how the half-day with the students should be spent.

2. The New Design of the Event

Discussions on what could lead to a more successful formula resulted in the following decisions: The students must feel that they are in large peer groups (8 to 10) with only two role models accompanying and guiding them. The author believed this would give the young women a sense that it was overwhelmingly their day, and they would find several peers around them, instead of several adults. The second point was that the day must consist of activities which were very different from each other and yet would give a very complete experience to the students. The main factor was that the activities must be fun and interesting. The half-day was organised as follows:

Students arrived at Nortel by bus at around 9 am. And after receiving their name badges, were ushered into an auditorium where Monique Frize made a 20-minute keynote presentation on the exciting careers in science and engineering and how to plan their career and their life. Some of the key messages included: The excellent job market in certain fields, namely in computer science and computer engineering, electrical engineering, biotechnology, and some fields of chemistry and physics; the courses that must be completed to be able to study in these fields; how to plan a career and the importance of achieving economic independence; the importance of choosing their spouse or partner as carefully as their career, and learning how to look at such a relationship as a partnership, and not to take on a submissive role; finally, the talk ended by giving tips for success.

At the end of the talk, each of the leaders (role models) introduced herself to the students (name and role); five students had volunteered from each of the universities (Ottawa and Carleton) and a similar number represented Nortel as staff. A few students and working women were from Algonquin College, and this provided a more complete picture of career opportunities. What a wonderful sight it was to see all these role models in front of the auditorium! The young students seemed to be very impressed!

The colour dots on the badges separated the groups effectively and students were rotated through three main types of activities: four groups were in the rotunda (a central large location at Nortel's main facility) creating a Pinocchio nose. The rules were simple: the nose had to stay horizontally on a real person's nose, and was to be created from a pile of newspapers, tape, and one string 6 feet long. The imagination was spectacular and the building process yielded noses that were between 15 and 18 feet in length. This activity was scheduled for a full hour.

During that time, two groups played a 'radioactive swamp' game, while the two other groups visited Nortel laboratories. Then the groups swapped. Each of these activities was scheduled for 30 minutes. The 'swamp crossing' game was a challenge where a whole team of students had to overcome several obstacles and dangers and get to the other side as successfully as possible.

The radioactive swamp required the team of students to collaboratively overcome several obstacles to successfully transport the entire team to safety. They never knew when the radioactive tsetse fly might strike them mute or blind, or when the swamp monster might steal an unused floating platform used for the transportation challenge. These four groups then went to build the nose, while the groups who had just built the nose went to labs and to the 'swamp crossing'.

The day ended with a 'pasta feast', and the students returned to school for the afternoon period. A detailed questionnaire was given to all grade 10 female students who had attended the event. The results are discussed in the next section. Table 1 shows the schedule of the rotation of the activities. There were approximately ten young women in each group, with two women role models, a student and a working scientist or engineer.

TABLE I: SCHEDULE OF ROTATION OF ACTIVITIES

3. Results

Enjoyment of the activities

Of the 90 students who attended the event, 75 filled-in the questionnaire. On the question of how well the day was organised, 94.6 % of the students answered 'YES'. Another 4.1 % (3 students) said 'SORT OF', and one student said 'NO'. When asked in general if they enjoyed the day, 86.7 % said 'YES, A LOT' and the remaining 13.3 % said 'SORT OF'. The results of how interesting each activity was, separately, are shown in Table 2 below. The results of how much fun each activity was, again separately, are shown in Table 3.

TABLE 2 HOW INTERESTING EACH ACTIVITY WAS (%)

TABLE 3 HOW MUCH FUN EACH ACTIVITY WAS (%)

Impact on Interest in these Topics, Future Course Selection and Career Choice

The question was: Did this visit change any of the following: your interest in science and engineering careers, your knowledge about opportunities in these fields, the courses you will choose in high school, and your own career choice. The students could answer 'YES' or 'NO' to each of the four parts of the question. Results are shown in Table 4 below.

TABLE 4 IMPACT ON CAREER AND COURSE CHOICES (%)

The results were very encouraging. Just over 60 % of the students indicated that the visit changed their interest in science and engineering careers; 88 % said that the visit changed their knowledge about such careers; 46.6 % indicated the visit will have an impact on their career choice; and 39.2 % said that the visit would change the courses they would take next year. On this last point, the school has actually confirmed that 80 percent of these young women have signed-up for advanced level science courses for their grade 11 classes, which represents a figure which is 50 percent higher than the indications in the questionnaire. Fifteen percent chose no science courses and the rest chose general level science courses.

On whether this activity should be repeated next year for a new group of grade 10 students, an overwhelming 90.7 % said 'YES' with 8% saying 'SORT OF'. Only one student said 'NO'.

In addition, because young women often feel it is important to attend special events with one or more friends, and that they should enjoy the group they are with, a few questions were added along these lines. It was surprising to find that 70 students (93.3 %) said that they had come with a friend. This visit is organised on a voluntary basis; students have to sign up for it and get their parents' or guardians' permission to attend. Moreover, 71 (or 94.7 %) said that they enjoyed the group they were with. The groups had been formed by the teachers on a random basis.

4. Discussion

It is evident from the results reported in the section above that the special half-day was highly successful, not only in involving the students in successful hands-on engineering and science activities, but in the degree of their enjoyment and interest in these activities. The four different types of activities offered a wide variety of information, fun, developing skills, and the students' confidence in getting involved in science and engineering. From the comments heard during the lunch and some of those reported above, the organisers feel that the formula has worked. Having a single-sex event, with a mixture of activities (a hands-on project, a game, lab visits, and a career guidance presentation) produced results that surpassed any expectations.

5. Conclusion

Much financial investment is made into science and engineering promotion programs and few have been assessed for impact. This study will hopefully stimulate many programs to assess how they are doing with respect to having a positive impact on each gender, with a special attention placed on how the participation of women in these fields can be increased substantially, especially in fields where the job market is excellent. In particular, designing an activity for females only, until such a time as obstacles and stereotypes disappear from our society, and insuring a mix of activities (a hands-on component, career choice guidance, visiting people actually doing engineering and science, a game) ending with a social activity such as a lunch with role models, was a recipe for outstanding success. The formula will be refined slightly to alternate the types of hands-on activities and games for new groups of students in the years to come. The long-term impact on career choice will be measured when these students graduate from high school.

References

Frize, M. "Impact of a Gender-Balanced Summer Engineering and Science Camp on Students' Future Course and Career Choices." To appear in Proceedings of WEPAN Conference, Seattle, June 1998.

Aknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the wonderful enthusiasm and dedication of the volunteers. Women scientists, engineers, and technologists working at Nortel were: Bonnie Stuart Anderson, Christine Bennett, Cecile Dreze, Joelle Guenette, Rebecca Lantz, Michele Low, Karen Meyer, Holly Pearce, Julie Richards, and Helen Wong. The students from the University of Ottawa were: Colleen Ennett, Anik Lacer