AWSEM
Science Club
Columbia
River Section
Final Report for DR046
July 6, 1999
The AWSEM program targets middle and high school
female students for a six-month (after school) program that provides weekly
hands-on science and engineering experiences, team building and self-esteem
exercises. Additionally the young women
attend up to three on-site visits per year to industrial sites, medical
facilities and universities.
By supporting
this program, the following strategic goals of the Society were targeted:
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·
Education |
Offer a program that encourages female
students to enter an engineering or science education by exposing them to the
various technical disciplines. |
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·
Diversity |
Target middle and high school women to
provide an intervention program that has proven to affect changes in attitude
and increased curiosity of opportunities in various technical fields. |
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·
Visibility |
Increase visibility of SWE and its programs
to members, the technical community, and the general public. Additionally, provide stipends to college
students (to be mentors of AWSEM clubs) increase SWE visibility specifically
on campuses. |
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·
Leadership |
SWE members and student members may
participate as AWSEM club mentors.
Additionally SWE members may host AWSEM site visits leading teams of
volunteers, and coordinating all aspects of these events. |
The
grant was approved to support 4 AWSEM independent clubs in the Portland
area: Mt. Tabor Middle School, Sellwood
Middle School, Tubman Middle School, and Marshall High School. Additionally, the grant was used to
reimburse start-up costs (only) of an AWSEM club at Twality Middle School.
Methodology to realize
project goals:
The grant was used to support new AWSEM independent clubs. The AWSEM program fundamentally supports the proposed grant goals for education, diversity, and leadership (through its inherent structure and methodology). However, in retrospect, more emphasis was needed to achieve the visibility goal.
Principal outcomes of this
project:
Below
are specifics for the 4 AWSEM clubs that were supported under this grant. Each of these 4 clubs held regular meetings
and participated in at least 2 work-site visits.
Mt.
Tabor Middle School
After
school meetings took place once a week (for 1.5 hours)
Attendance
13 girls all with perfect attendance
Site
Visits:
1.
Oregon
Graduate Institute
2.
HDR
Engineering, February 17th
Sellwood
Middle School
(Sara Brown-Schmidt):
School
meetings took place on Tuesdays during the lunch hour (for 55 minutes)
Attendance:
16 members, typical attendance is between 10-12 girls
Site
Visits:
1.
Intel
InfoCenter (January 12th)
2.
Intel/Ronler
Acres (February 10th)
Tubman
Middle School
(Katherine Stuenkel):
After
school meetings took place every Wednesday from 3:45 to 4:45
Attendance:
10-15 girls
Site
Visits:
1.
Oswego
Vet Clinic, 11/10/98
2.
FLIR
Systems, 1/22/98
3.
Oregon
Health Sciences University, 2/5/99
Marshall
High School
(Michelle Delplance):
After
school meetings took place on Tuesdays (from 2:45 to 4:45)
Attendance:
10 members, typical attendance size is 7
Site Visits:
1.
Oregon
Regional Primate Research Center, 11/13/98
2.
ITT
Technical Institute, 1/16/99
3.
Mentor
Graphics, 3/5/99
In
addition, this grant supplied reimbursement funds ($60) for Twality Middle
School which attempted to get started, but disbanded after a few
weeks. Mira Vowles, a SWE member, was
instrumental in working with this new club.
Sometimes these fledgling groups are not successful in their efforts,
yet we are proud we could back up Mira and expect she will work to get a new
club going (probably a little earlier in the upcoming school year).
1)
Group
Leader: Sue Margolis, Engineer.
2)
Group
Leader training (date): January 9th.
3)
Expenses: Activity kit ($25) Curriculum Guide ($10)
and Group Leader training ($25).
4)
The
club started 1/6/99, meeting on Mondays and Wednesdays; 2-6 girls attended (for
3 weeks).
Another
grant has been submitted for the upcoming school year (1999-2000). The budget was substantially revised to
include greater support for supplies and transportation, an increased mentor
stipend, and new AWSEM administration expenses.
The
primary difficulty was in reimbursement to group leaders. Several of these women were college students
and while the stipend was disbursed in May, the remaining 10% included some of
their supplies/transportation expenses.
These students have moved over the summer and may be hard to
locate. Fortunately, this year, these
remaining funds were not very high. On
the other hand, the sponsoring school districts were willing to wait for funds
to cover training and Activity Kits.
There
are several changes in the payment structure for next year. For example, AWSEM is requesting new
administration fees that will be due at the end of September. If a new grant is received, the experience
of the grant process will be extremely useful in ensuring that reports are
generated early enough to cover expenses in a timely manner.
In
summary, the disbursement process lagged due to this writer’s
inexperience. More could have been don
to increase SWE visibility. The
Independent Clubs that received SWE support were thrilled for the financial
assistance. The participating students
were enthusiastic about the benefits of the program and were excited to join an
AWSEM club again next year.
Financials – Expense
Details:
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AWSEM expenses 1998-1999 |
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Professional Services |
$2,000.00 |
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Mentor stipends for 4 AWSEM clubs,
$500 each |
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Travel |
$59.12 |
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Bus fare and mileage expenses |
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Supplies and Equipment |
$209.24 |
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Action Kit, Directory of
Practitioners, supplies for experiments |
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Training |
$55.00 |
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Mentor training from AWSEM |
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Postage |
$3.20 |
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$2,326.56 |
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$2,326.56 |
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