Girl Scouts of the USA (GSUSA) is developing three separate culturally-relevant parent/girl engineering career toolkits entitled ""GUIDE - Girls Understand, Imagine and Dream Engineering,"" for dissemination to African American, Native American and Hispanic parents and their daughters ages 13-17. The goal of this informal education resource is to inform and engage parents from the three racial/ethnic groups about engineering in a culturally-relevant manner, so that they may take an active role in encouraging their daughters to consider engineering careers. The GUIDE Toolkit will consist of: (1) the GUIDE Handbook, a customized, culturally-appropriate engineering career resource for use with both parents and girls; and (2) GUIDE Workshops to introduce the GUIDE Handbook to parents and girls from the target racial groups at Girl Scout councils and the larger community.
Intellectual Merit - GSUSA will introduce more girls to the field of engineering, with the expectation that more girls will decide to enter the engineering education pipeline, choosing engineering careers in the future. Because GSUSA serves girls from the age of five through 17, the organization has the unique advantage of being able to introduce girls to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) at the critical time in their educational development - before they lose interest. Stimulating early interest in STEM subjects positively correlates with the likelihood of choosing those subjects as career paths. GSUSA efforts will help reduce the existing gender inequity in STEM career fields and increase the U.S. engineering workforce, competitive edge, and contribute to the diversity of engineering workforce and the diversity of thought overall.
Broader Impact - As the preeminent organization for girls in the U.S., introducing girls to STEM is a program priority. The Toolkit will enhance GSUSA efforts to accomplish this with three key racial/ethnic groups. Currently, 323,822 of GSUSA members are African American, 271,831 are Hispanic, and 30,613 are Native American. As an organization that has an extensive national network of councils that is now being utilized by 10% of the U.S. girl population, GSUSA is in a unique position to leverage informal education resources to change the way girls perceive STEM subjects. The GUIDE Toolkit will also be distributed through other youth serving organizations such as 4H, the Boys and Girls Club of America, Girls Inc, and National Research Center for College and University Admissions (NRCCUA).
