Outreach in a Section with Small Arms

Contact Information

• DubuqueSWE@gmail.com• Facebook.com/DubuqueSWE• Presenters:

o Amy Joneso Erin Ralpho Rachel Le Vélyo Susan Rodríguez

Agenda• Introductions and Welcome • History of Our Section • How To

o Finding and building relationships with your communityo Designing an event o Scaling an activity o Encouraging members to volunteer

• Successes / Impact of our Section• Sustaining the Impact

History of our section

New Professional Section Formation

5 Step ProcessNew Section coordinator receives an inquiry

Proposed section’s contact person determines feasibility

Proposed section begins chartering process

BOD approves proposed section’s charter

Section meets all section requirements

Dubuque Area Core Team

Erin Ralph, Jenna Walsh, Rachel Le Vely, Sandra Schultz

2010 Activity – Initial Planning Phase

August 2010Initial

Conversation

September 2010

Core Team Organized

October 2010

Started Chartering

Process

November 2010

1st Chartering Meeting“What is SWE?”

2011 Activity

January - September 2011

Monthly Chartering Meetings

Monthly Section Events

October 2011

Chartered @ Annual

Conference

November 2011Outreach Kickoff

(15)

December 2011Chartering

Celebration (77)

DBQ Area SWE Org StructurePresident

Vice President

Membership Chair

Awards Coordinator

Professional Development

Chair

Outreach Chair

Networking Chair

Treasurer

Finance Chair

Audit Chair

Fundraising Chair

Secretary

Publicity Coordinator

Webmaster

Newsletter Editor

Social Media Coordinator

Section Representativ

e

Collegiate Counselor

Dubuque Area Membership Growth

July 201452

June 201335

March 201233

December 2011 - 27

February 2011 - 10

Oct2010 - 2

Finding and Building Relationships with

Community Partners

General Notes

• You can’t do it alone• Don’t try to reinvent the wheel• Look for partners who can handle some of the

time-intensive parts of outreach event planning

Finding partners – Some ideas

• Chamber of Commerce• Girl Scouts, FIRST LEGO League• Schools – Science Coordinator / Gifted and

Talented Coordinator • After school programs (Community Center,

Multicultural Center)• Local attractions (library, river museum, you can

ask what groups visit them)• Local Colleges – Community Colleges, etc.• Other professional organization (Women’s

Leadership Network, SAE, SHPE)

Building relationships with partners

• Reach out to them to learn more about them o You want to make sure that they’re a good fit for SWE and your section

• Add them to your distributions list/Facebook page• Consider holding an outreach kickoff

o Introduces partners to your sectiono Lay out a plan for outreach over the year

• Allow your network to grow – please forward my information

Sample EmailDear X,

I am the outreach chair for the X section of the Society of Women Engineers. I found your contact information through X, who let me know that you are involved with outreach.

Our section consists of engineering and science professionals with a passion for educational outreach. I’d love to meet with you to discuss opportunities for our organizations to work together. Please let me know if you have any availability during the week of the 10th. In the meantime, I hope that you’ll keep me aware of any outreach opportunities that I can pass along to the SWE membership.

If there are other organizations in the community that you think might be interested in partnership with SWE, please don’t hesitate to pass along my contact information. Warm regards,

Your Name

Best Practices

• Designate an outreach chair, as a single point of contact

• Meet Face to Face at least 2x/year• Establish clear expectations of volunteers and

numbers of volunteers EVERY TIME• Know who’s going to take the lead for each event.

o Consider establishing this in writing

• Reach out and offer what you have (volunteers), but don’t overpromise

Designing an Activity

Types of events• Level 1: Just show up

o Classroom presentationso Career Fairs

• Level 2: Present an activity as part of a larger evento STEM fairo Summer camps

• Level 3: We plan and organize the entire event.o SWE “Event in a Box” activitieso Loras Career Panel

Step 1 – Define the Parameters

• Event Goalso Build confidence in math and science skillso Improve attitudes (“This is kind of fun!”)o Expose students to career opportunities

• Event Audienceo Age / Gender o Mixed vs. One group

• Event Resourceso Type of room, amount of timeo Cost/budgeto Timing of event, how long do you have to recruit volunteerso Supplies available

Step 2 – Define what you need

• Resourceso Ratio of Volunteers: Students

• Elementary School 1:4• Middle School 1:6• High School/College 1:10

o Materials • Usually 110-125% of what is recommended• Always add paper towels• Reuseable

o Reoccurring events are great for sustainability

Step 3a – Define the details

• Types of Eventso Presentation

• (What is engineering, design process, etc.)o Activity

• Hands ono Discussion / Processing

• What did you see?• Why do you think that is?• What if…?• What would you have changed?

Activity Resources• http://growingastemclassroom.blogspot.com/p/fre

ebies.html• DiscoverE.org• PBS Design Squad (

http://pbskids.org/designsquad/parentseducators/index.html)

• PBS Zoom (http://pbskids.org/zoom/activities/sci/)• SWE Aspire website• http://iexplorestem.org/resources

Step 3b – Scale the activity

For the same basic activity, change the difficulty level by:• Add/remove some of the materials• Add a “cost” criteria for design activities (the

fewer the materials, the better)• Allow time to iterate/discuss what students would

have changed• Add processing questions• Introduce a real world application based on the

underlying STEM concept

Example• Penny Boat

o For 10 first grade students with 3 volunteers• Presentation is high level about problem solving• Volunteers stay with a group and ask leading questions to help• Emphasis on trying things out and successfully moving pennies

o For 20 high school sophomores with 2 volunteers• Presentation changes to incorporate more “real world”• Story adapts to something more feasible, but connected to a higher

purpose. (Moving food to refuges)• Challenges are added (wider variety of materials, more

complicated challenges, additional time allocated for design phase)• Volunteers “float” between groups, listening and answering

questions• Focus on accomplishing a goal efficiently and applying principles to

real world type activity.

Encouraging Volunteers

Encouraging members to volunteer

• Set clear expectationso I need someone to help plano I need someone to presento I need someone to work with a group of 4-6 students on activity A

• Give them a safe space to learno An experienced volunteer will go with you to X event

• Reach out individually with a clear Ask.• Give plenty of notice and respond promptly

o 4-6 weeks tends to be the best window of time to introduce an event

• Advertise what skills they gaino Practice presenting, etc.

• Connect them with higher purpose

Connecting members to a higher purpose

• Why is STEM outreach important?

Why Outreach?Bachelor Degree by Gender

FemaleMale

To make matters worse, the number of women who STAY in engineering fields declines to 9%....

Why Outreach to Women?

Bachelor Degree by Ethnicity

White BlackAsian AmericanHispanicUnknownOther

Studies have shown that increases the number of women also increases diversity overall. Looking at the numbers….

Decline in # of Students pursuing STEM

• Recent decline of students pursuing engineering degrees– For decades there has been a shortage of female

students who pursue STEM careers and the # has been declining in the US since 1991 (Forssen, 2011)• One strong contributing factor to this is that high

school girls feel they don’t have strong enough mathematical or computing background to pursue a STEM career – Lack of Confidence! Lack of Role Models!

How can we change this? With Outreach!

• Outreach can give students information about engineering disiplines and careers, the basics of engineering education, and details about becoming a professional engineer (Goonatilake, 2012)

How to Impact Female Students – Know Your

Audience!• Two ways to to impact the rate at which female students pursue STEM careers: (Forseen, 2011)– Need to increase students knowledge and confidence towards the

STEM fields with early classroom exposure to these fields– Need to expose the students (and their teachers) to the exciting

career opportunities within STEM

• One study found that female students may find the communication and creativity aspects of engineering appealing while male students may find the problem solving aspects appealing (Forssen, 2011)• Another study found that high school girls prefer human/human

interaction with the computer as an enabling device as opposed to computer/human interaction only (Hanor, 1998)

Sustainabilityaka Making it Easy

Best Practices• Build a “library” of activities

o Available online (DiscoverE.org, etc.)o Scale activities based on audience / volunteers – talk through during

activity

• Create a volunteer handouto See Sample “Penny Boat Volunteer Handout”

• Spend one day bundling materials with activityo Volunteers can grab a kit and goo Reusing materials

Our Impact

Career Fairs• SWE presents at 4 career fairs annually

o 2 local high schoolso Fall/spring 8th grade events

• Pre-made “Engineering 101” PowerPoint for volunteers to use

• Time commitmento Chair planning time: 1 houro Volunteer time: 2 hours eacho 4 volunteers per event

• Impact: >100 students each time!• First session to fill up at most recent fair

Girl Scouts DREAM Event

• Run by Girl Scouts of Eastern Iowa and Western Illinois

• Event for middle school girls to learn about various career paths

• Rachel noticed a lack of STEM activities in 2013 and contacted Girl Scouts

• Volunteers led Brush Bots activity• Invited to participate again in 2014• Time commitment

o Chair planning time: 2 hourso Volunteer time: 1.5 hours

SHPE Noche de Ciencias

• First year event held in Dubuque• Partnered with Dubuque SHPE and St. Anthony

Elementary School• STEM activities for children pre-K through 12th

gradeo Pinwheels, penny boat, tillage, marshmallow challenge, FIRST robotics

• College & financial aid info sessions for parents• Mini college fair• SWE volunteers: 4• Impact: >100 students! Registration had to be

closed down

STEM Festival• Dubuque Family STEM Festival• 4,000 attendees, 50 exhibitors• Target 3rd-8th grades, parents• 4 volunteers to run the booth• Penny boats activity• Brochures for parents

Loras Career Panel• Local college with engineering program• 5 panelists, 25 students• Very little planning time and cost

Impact (since Oct. 2013)

• 9 events• 30 volunteers• 70 volunteer hours• More than 600 students

600+ students

30 volunteers

1 Outreach Chair

Sustaining the Impact –

Event Reviews in Newsletter

Use of Surveys• Survey Monkey / Doodle Poll

o Surveyed members to try to get input on • Day/time of day to have events • Type of event our membership is most interested in

• Surveys to quantify the impacto Pre-Survey and Post-Survey should share questions, to show the

change caused by the evento Ask for surveys to be completed AT the event, not afterwardso See handout for sample survey

Evaluate events• Impact is more than just numbers. It may be a

connection with an organization, or a personal connection with a student

• It’s okay to cut things. You can’t do everything.o Events should relate to (and support) SWE’s mission and the need of

your members.

• Event Recap forms gather the information that you needo See handout for an example

Recognizing volunteers

• Newsletter• Hand written thank you

note• SWE “Be That Engineer” in

frame (~$2/each)• Highlight what they

specifically brought to the activity

• Ask for feedback and use it• Lunch/dinner recognition

events

Managing Transitions

Managing the transitions between volunteers

• Transitioning Leaders / Outreach Chairs:o Create forms/templates for emails, thank you’s, and event planning o Keep contacts current and introduce new people to the partner

organizationso Organize and keep documentation of past eventso Ask clearly for what you need from the outgoing persono When possible, complete planning for events around the transition time

(+/- 2 months) WITH the new person. o Try not to transition everybody (Executive Board members, chairs, and

volunteers) at the same time. • If possible, transition Executive Board members first.

o Transition in the summer. It tends to be slower for outreach events.