Students from Arthur Kramer Elementary were invited to the headquarters of engineering firm AECOM, which relocated to Dallas from Los Angeles last year.
The third-grade students met with female executives and engineers for “introduce a girl to engineering day.”
They also played S.T.E.M.-focused games, such as building towers using tape, dry spaghetti and marshmallows.
“When I was in high school, I didn’t know what an engineer was. A teacher suggested that I study engineering in college – which I’m grateful for,” said Wendy Lopez, Texas Executive, AECOM. “That’s why it’s very important to me to become visible to young people – you can’t be what you can’t see. If you’ve never met an engineer and you don’t know what they do, why would want to become one?”
The $1.2-trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act will create a demand for engineers, AECOM stated in a media release.
The overall workforce in the United States is 47 percent female but only 13 percent of all engineers are women. A Society of Women Engineers report states that 20 years later, only 30 percent of women who earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering are still working within the industry. The leadership at AECOM hopes that with events like these, they can draw more women to the field.
