Category: Outreach Opportunities

Volunteer engineers from the Charlotte-Metrolina Society of Women Engineers (SWE) Section and National Society of Black Engineers – Charlotte Alumni Extension Chapter (NSBE-CAEC) started as  “Citizen Teachers” for a ten week engineering apprenticeship through Citizen Schools at CMS’ Martin Luther King Middle School on February 7, 2013.  The ten week apprenticeship will showcase the field of engineering to 20 sixth grade students.  The students will meet with volunteer “Citizen Teachers” from SWE and NSBE-CAEC weekly to complete hands on activities showing how engineers solve everyday problems to make the world a better place.

OUTREACH OPPORTUNITIES!

• Engineers Week Junior Girl Scout Badge Event – “Engineers Are Epic!” – February 23, 2013 8:00 am – 2:30 pm – Hornets’ Nest Girl Scout Council, 7007 Idlewild Road, Charlotte
  • For more than 10 years, SWE-Charlotte-Metrolina has conducted this event with the Hornets’ Nest Girl Scout Council.  Volunteers conduct five hands on sessions covering structural, civil, mechanical, chemical and electrical engineering.  The success of this event hinges on our high volunteer to Girl Scout ratio.  Your participation is the reason for the success of this longstanding program.  To sign-up for this event, please use our SWEeter Futures website.  Sign in (if you volunteered in October 2012) or register at www.sweeterfutures.swe.org and then click the event details link and click the Sign-Up link.

• Citizen Schools Apprenticeship Program – February 7-April 18, 2013 – Thursdays from 4:30pm to 6:00pm – Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School, 500 Bilmark Ave, Charlotte
  • A teacher will be present to assist with class management.  Class size will be 16-20 students.  Materials for hands on activities each week will be provided by SWE.  This will be a joint program between NSBE and SWE with each organization planning to provide five volunteers for a total of ten.  Each volunteer is only needed for one Thursday afternoon during the ten week program.  If you would like to volunteer, please email Angela Berry at [email protected].   Also, Citizen Schools would like each volunteer to complete an application at http://www.citizenschools.org/volunteer/application/.

• “Introduce A Girl To Engineering” hosted by NCDOT and Women’s Transportation Seminar – February 12th 8:30AM – 1:30PM – Metrolina Regional Transportation Management Center, 2327 Tipton Drive, Charlotte
  • The day will consist of two panel discussions, an activity, and a skit. Last year, NCDOT approached WTS to co-sponsor a daylong event to encourage high school girls to think about engineering and it was a big success by all accounts.  The students that participated last year asked to hear about different engineering disciplines (mechanical, biomedical, industrial, computer, etc.).   WTS contacted SWE to ask our membership for one or two women to attend between 9:00AM and 10:30AM to speak during the panel discussion.  Volunteer by contacting Lydia Boles at [email protected].

• “Engineers Week” classroom visits – week of February 18^th – Monroe Middle School – 601 East Sunset Drive, Monroe
  • The Careers & Technology teacher at Monroe Middle School is looking for volunteers to come into the school during any period and do a quick intro to engineering using the hands on activity attached.  If you would like to volunteer please contact Angela Berry at [email protected]

Earlier this year SWE implemented a system to capture and quantify all volunteer hours spent on outreach efforts.  SWEeter Futures is a unique online portal that tracks our individual and collective impact on the future of engineering.  SWEeter Futures was started in Region B by Kerrie Greenfelder to demonstrate the impact of SWE’s outreach. This program was extremely successful and has prompted this SWE-wide adoption.

In addition to capturing the time spent by our volunteers on outreach, utilization of SWEeter Futures in October 2012 resulted in SWE Charlotte-Metrolina winning 50 Agilent Kits from SWE HQ valued at over $1,000.  Looking to win ten Agilent Kits, SWE Charlotte-Metrolina first utilized SWEeter Futures for volunteer registration for our October 2012 Girl Scout badge event.  21 volunteers signed up through the system and 137 hours of volunteer time was recorded.  Imagine our surprise when SWE HQ announced we had won 50 of these valuable kits!  We were stunned as well to finally “do the math” on our Girl Scout event and document the actual number of volunteer hours that go into making this event one of our most successful.

The Agilent After School kits won by SWE-CM are hands-on engineering and science experiments targeting children in the 9 – 14 year age group. The kits are packaged as a “program-in-a-box,” providing everything needed to demonstrate specific science and engineering concepts. One kit provides materials for 4 students.  SWE Charlotte-Metrolina selected 10 each of the following five kits for our prize – Solar Energy, Catapult, Steady Hand Game, Kalimba (Thumb Piano), and Electronic Matching Game.  These kits will be used for upcoming outreach activities.

Every hour spent planning or doing outreach will help demonstrate the impact of SWE’s outreach, help improve the work we do, share best practices and raise money.  Through this reporting, SWE will be able to publicly recognize our outstanding contributors in outreach at the individual and section levels with honors, awards and even grants.

We know it is important to us!  Register at FabFems.org to join a database of role models that teachers and other educators can contact for assistance with mentoring, activity ideas, and other support for promoting science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) to future generations.