Girls at the University - IGE Day 2019
IGEday stands for Introduce a Girl to Engineering day and is an annual initiative from Womengineer to increase interest in technology and engineering among girls. Companies, organizations and universities around Sweden are encouraged to attend this day, where they will be able to invite girls for a day of activities and give them an insight into how it is to work as an engineer.
This year, two divisions from Department of Civil, Environmental and Natural Resources Engineering at Luleå University of Technology participated in IGEday. Charlotta Johansson, the head of the department, welcomed the girls with an encouraging talk about all the opportunities within education that are available in our department.
"Being an engineer can lead to many exciting things and there are many different areas to study within. One such day gives the visitors a chance to find out a little more, both what educations are available and what they could work with in the future. As an engineer, one can contribute to society and the development of it. We want to show that this is a road is open for everyone", says Linnea Malmström, recruitment manager at the Department of Civil and Natural Resources Engineering at Luleå University of Technology.
The girls got to build a dam with different materials and then see the dam fail when the water pressure became too high. This gave them insight into the work of an engineer in soil mechanics. They also got an insight into how concrete can be used to construct a canoe that should be able to float on water.
"It was nice to give the girls some hands-on experience with soil mechanics, so that they can explore possible careers in civil engineering. We hope to see as many, or even more, girls here next year", says Jasmina Toromanovic, PhD in soil mechanics at Luleå University of Technology.
They also discovered how extraordinary concrete looks like at 1000 magnification with the use of Scanning Electrone Microscope. Finally, they took a glance at various equipment in the building materials lab to learn that building materials research is a very interdisciplinary environment with chemistry, physics and engineering mixed together.
"The girls got to know that concrete can be also applied to build a canoe. They were shown what kind of properties ultra high performance concrete has and why it is special. This demonstrated them that science is not only serious but also lots of fun", says Ilda Tole, PhD in Building Materials at Luleå University of Technology.
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[http://www.igeday.com/]
[http://womengineer.org/]
