Event for mothers and daughters provides early introduction to STEM
Published April 15, 2015
Emilia Lamp looked up at her mom, Melissa, with a huge grin. “Look,” she said, “I’m making my own music.” The tunes were coming from a circuit they created with Snap Circuits®, kits that introduce kids to the basics of electricity and electronics, during the inaugural Mommy, Me and SWE event at NDSU.
Emilia was one of 18 girls in kindergarten through second grade who participated in hands-on activities aimed at introducing them to science, technology, engineering and math, also known as STEM, on April 11. The Society of Women Engineers organized the half-day event and directed hands-on activities.
The NDSU Society of Women Engineers provided K-2 girls and their mothers a hands-on introduction to STEM fields during the inaugural Mommy, Me and SWE event.
In addition to designing and building with the Snap Circuits to learn about electrical engineering, the girls built structures out of food items for civil engineering, created assembly lines for industrial engineering, and used GoldieBlox™ kits to learn about simple machines and mechanical engineering.
“We’re very excited about the success of our first Mommy, Me and SWE event,” said Mackayla Headlee, president of NDSU SWE and a senior in electrical engineering from Nisswa, Minnesota. “Our goal was to expose these young, impressionable girls to what engineering is and give the moms valuable takeaways on how they can encourage their daughters to stay with STEM as they grow up.”
SWE members also led a workshop for the mothers focused on how to encourage their daughters’ interests in STEM fields.
There was so much interest in the event that NDSU SWE is considering holding Mommy, Me and SWE events every semester moving forward. As for the first one, perhaps the best measure of success is the fact that Emilia Lamp made her mom stop on the way home to buy a Snap Circuits kit of her own.
