The College of Engineering and the Forest Bioproducts Research Institute (FBRI) is offering programs for rural middle and high school girls to become immersed in engineering and forestry.
The programs offer rural Maine girls the opportunity to learn about cutting edge forest bioproducts research and sustainable energy technology as it relates to Maine’s forestry industry. Students and faculty from forest resources and chemical engineering as well as FBRI staff are involved in program activities.
The two programs, one for high school and one for middle school girls, are part of a larger effort by the College of Engineering and Girls Engineer Maine (GEM) to spread awareness of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields to young women in Maine. Two programs are collected under the umbrella of the Sustainable Energy Leaders of the Future (SELF) group. The first group project, called “Awareness Days for Middle School Girls” was initiated last year when Sheila Pendse, Project Development Associate in the College of Engineering, successfully acquired a $24,000 two-year grant from the Engineering Information Foundation.
The second program for High School Girls, known as the SELF Summer Institute, is a three-day residential program at the University of Maine, where girls, mostly sophomores, become engaged in a variety of activities related to renewable energy and the responsible use of Maine’s forest ecosystems. That program also started last year with $95,000 funding from the United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture for three years.
Past activities of the Summer Institute have included field trips and tours to various facilities in and around the University, lectures on topics in forest operations and biofuels technology and hands-on activities involving wood composites and renewable energy. Dialogues with and mentoring by students and faculty at UMaine are also included, in addition to leisure activities such as rock climbing, movies and social events.
The focus is on girls from rural areas with an emphasis on Aroostook and Oxford counties; however, high school girls from other areas are also encouraged to apply. The 2015 SELF Summer Institute will be held from June 28 to July 1.
For middle school girls, there is the SELF day program, where schools and organizations can bring a group of up to 20 girls to UMaine, where they spend the day at the FBRI engaged in similar activities related to STEM and forestry. Groups can choose a day to come.
Alexandra Wirth, a junior mechanical engineering student and member of the UMaine Society of Women Engineers (SWE), a national and campus-wide group that supports women in engineering, feels it’s important to get the word out to young people, especially girls, about STEM fields.
“It really helps to get girls interested early and encourage the idea that, yes, you can go into engineering, you can enjoy these things and do awesome things in the sciences,” Wirth, who updates SWE’s website regularly, said.
Sheila Pendse, who heads the two SELF programs, says the goal of the program is to educate girls, a largely under-represented group in engineering, about the prospects here in Maine’s forest products industry, and to encourage future college students “to think about new and sustainable ways of using Maine’s forest ecosystems.” Traditionally, Pendse said, women represent a minority in engineering fields. However, in Maine as well as in other places, engineers are some of the most in-demand workers in the state, especially as alternative sources of energy become a larger focus of activities.
“If girls are not getting exposed to [these kinds of things], they are losing out on these opportunities,” Pendse said.
“Engineering is where the most jobs are in Maine, and it’s where we need to improve most. Maine needs more engineer students, and women need to be a bigger part of that.”
At the University of Maine, about 20 percent of all engineering majors are female. With that number having increased in the last few years, there is hope that this is changing.
“Things are changing [for girls], and we want them to think about it,” Pendse says.
However, she adds, there are still challenges. Through initiatives like GEM and the SELF Institute are involving more Maine girls than ever, she says the percentage of girls in engineering at UMaine is still low.
“We are working on involving all these girls, but when we look at the admission numbers [for engineering], they are still low,” she says. Though female enrollment rates in engineering have increased from 15 percent to 20 percent, she says the college is “still not there” as far as reaching their ultimate goal goes. In certain engineering major programs, she says, there are very few girls enrolled.
Maine’s forestry industry has been a staple of its economy for generations of Mainers. However, there have been economic difficulties, particularly with the closing of many of Maine’s paper mills.
What Pendse wants girls and youth in general to know about is that there are opportunities in Maine’s forest products industry for those interested in environmentally and economically sustainable energy and technology beyond the paper mills.
“[There is the opportunity to] do all these exciting new things, so we are just giving them something to think about, to show that there is a future in Maine,” she says.
High school girls with interest in science and technology are encouraged to apply online at umaine.edu/gem/participating-schools/sustainable-energy-leaders-of-the-future-self-application. Groups interested should contact Shelia Pendse, the head of the program, at shelia.pendse@maine.edu.