Over 40 Butler Intermediate High School girls spent Tuesday engaging in hands-on activities as part of XTO Energy’s “Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day.”
Butler Intermediate High School science teacher Dave Andrews,“There’s a focus in education all across the country in STEM careers and unfortunately I think that a lot of the girls kind of get left behind. But as we see here when you give them a chance and especially in this kind of environment where it is just all the ladies, some of the things they do are absolutely amazing. It gives them a little more confidence that they can go in and they can go do this.”
The students were invited to XTO’s Warrendale office to work on two hands-on engineering activities designed to showcase the unique and real-world applications of science, technology, engineering and math (also known as STEM). For the first experiment, students were tasked with designing a catapult that would launch a marshmallow to a specific target. For the next activity students were challenged to create a roller coaster for a marble using only file folders, scissors and tape.
Participants also had a chance to hear from XTO employees like Operations Engineer Meredith Gustafsson about her experience choosing a STEM related career.
“Engineering in general women are still underrepresented, a minority. It’s not an easy career necessarily to get into but I think it’s a fantastic career choice for women in general both just because it’s very practical and it’s high earning potential,” Gustafsson explained.
This is the fourth year that XTO has partnered with the Intermediate for “Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day” in order to show girls the exciting aspects of engineering careers.
Written and Photos by Ryan Saeler
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