Engineering event for girls highlights plastics

Girls interested in engineering learned a bit about plastics at the annual Go Eng Girl event in Sarnia Saturday.

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Using glycerin, agar and water, Grade 7-10 youngsters learned about different recipes for plastics and were getting a chance to test those out at the NOVA Chemicals-sponsored event, said Western University’s Natalie Roby.

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“We specifically made sure that the activities related to something that a process engineer might do who works at NOVA Chemicals,” said the university’s outreach programs manager.

Added Katherine Albion, executive director of the Western Sarnia-Lambton Research Park where the event was held, “this is the first year there’s been a focus of the event on our local industries.”

Past years have included looks at things like robotics, she said.

“But this is the first time we’ve really had the focus on plastics or biomaterials here.”

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The day included looking at plastics construction from biodegradable materials, a keynote from NOVA’s Meghie Smids, tours of Lambton College’s advanced manufacturing lab and extrusion center at the research park, and opportunities for youth and their parents to ask questions about engineering as a career and studies path, said Roby.

The program, designed to encourage more females in engineering, started in London in 2007 and expanded to Sarnia in 2017, officials have said.

Roby, a chemical engineer who’s interned with Union Gas and worked in window manufacturing, recalled attending one in London when she was younger.

“I was in a very similar position to a lot of the girls who are here at this event today, where I was interested in engineering but didn’t know where it was going to take me,” she said.

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“So to be able to come and meet other women who are in an engineering field or found themselves in a STEM (science, technology, engineering math) field, it was reassuring to me that there are other people like me who are interested in engineering and math.”

More than 50 youngsters and their parents attended Saturday, she said.

Women are underrepresented in engineering generally, she said.

“I know chemical engineering, it does have a higher ratio of women to men; but a lot of the other engineering disciplines are very underrepresented,” she said.

“I would say maybe 30 per hundred women in my engineering courses, which is still pretty low.”

It’s important for girls to take sciences in high school to keep their options open, and events like Go Eng Girl help those who might be feeling attempt about engineering make connections, she said.

“I don’t want women or females when they’re young to hesitate to go into engineering because they think, ‘there won’t be someone like me,’” Roby said.

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