A great way to start reaching large numbers of girls at a young age is through the Girl Scouts. The process of earning badges is a way to teach girls life skills while having fun and getting recognized for their accomplishments, and recently a troop of Brownies not only earned badges in engineering, they designed and 3D printed their badges themselves – a perfect way to gain hands-on experience in technology. The Brownies visited Renishaw at its Miskin facility in South Wales, and worked with Renishaw engineers in three sessions that saw them designing and 3D printing their own badges.
“Working with the Brownie Group is just one of the many ways Renishaw engages with young people,” Chris Pockett, Head of Communications at Renishaw, told 3DPrint.com. “In South Wales, we use our dedicated education facility to engage with primary and secondary school pupils. We are also involved with a number of local and national education outreach projects to encourage young people to engage in STEM activities including work with; Greenpower, SS Great Britain Trust, Bristol Music Trust and our popular engineering work experience weeks.
The UK has the lowest percentage of female engineers in Europe. Offering activities to young people that portray engineering as a career that girls can aspire to is an important step in increasing this percentage.”
“The Brownies were extremely grateful for the opportunity to experience something new and exciting,” said Steph Horsley, 1st Llanharan Brownie Leader. “It is a fantastic resource and to be able to try things that we cannot do in our own units is essential to developing the girls and hopefully inspiring them for the future. We thoroughly enjoyed it.”
You can find out more about Renishaw’s educational outreach here.
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