By Steve Keenan
The Montgomery Herald
MONTGOMERY —
The career of a woman who may design the bridge you drive on in 20 years could have received its impetus Thursday. On that day, Bridgemont Community and Technical College hosted Introduce A Girl To Engineering Day in Davis Hall. The event serves to increase awareness of the profession, and celebrates past and present engineering achievements of women. The aim is to let young ladies know engineering could be a possible career, and provide them the knowledge to start laying the foundation for reaching that goal now. For its segment of the nationally-recognized event, Bridgemont CTC invited eighth-grade female students from Raleigh, Fayette, Clay and Kanawha counties to attend. Female engineering faculty, students and professionals joined them to encourage the girls to further their aspirations. “This is a great opportunity for girls to learn what great things they can accomplish. By exposing these students to the exciting field engineering technology, these young women may become the next generation of engineers and scientist to move West Virginia forward in a global economy,” said Dr. Jo Harris, Bridgemont president. “This is a good program,” added teacher Brittany Goode, who brought a large group of Stonewall Jackson Middle School students to the event. “They’re really loving it.” The SJMS students are taking either geometry or Algebra I, and they are all enrolled in a physical science class, Goode said. “Here, they can deal with math and science, and there are real engineers to talk to the girls.” Ms. Terah Burdette, a mining engineer with Arch Coal, was the guest speaker. The activities included a variety of demonstrations and experiments to provide young women a hands-on experience with the different disciplines of engineering technology. The event was sponsored by the Mine Safety Technology Consortium, Lopez Restaurant, American Electric Power and the W.Va. Department of Environmental Protection. The National Engineers Week Foundation, a formal coalition of more than 100 professional societies, major corporations and government agencies, is dedicated to ensuring a diverse and well-educated future engineering workforce by increasing understanding of, and interest in engineering and technology careers among young students and by promoting pre-college literacy in math and science. For more information, visit www.eweek.org. — E-mail: skeenan@register-herald.com