LINCROFT — Female engineering students and faculty will welcome local Girl Scouts to Brookdale Communty College at 765 Newman Springs Road on April 23 for an interactive program designed to interest girls in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) careers.
The program, held for the third consecutive year, will feature an informal engineering competition requiring the Girl Scouts to build a functioning “roller coaster” out of raw materials such as cardboard tubes and paper cups. The project, overseen by Brookdale STEM faculty, also requires the girls to manage a fictional budget, which is used to purchase materials.
The engineering activity will be followed by a panel discussion featuring female graduate students from Rutgers University and current Brookdale STEM majors. The girls will be able to ask questions and learn more about the various career paths available to today’s STEM professionals according to Brookdale assistant mathematics professor Susan Monroe.
“There are a wide variety of rewarding, challenging career opportunities for today’s STEM graduates, but these fields remain dominated by men,” said Monroe. “Our goal is to show the young women in our community that they can do this work as well as anyone. We also want to show them that things like math and engineering can actually be a lot of fun.”
The program is sponsored by the Brookdale STEM Institute, the American Association of University Women and the Girl Scouts of the Jersey Shore.
For more information, contact the Girl Scouts of the Jersey Shore at 732-938-5454.