GIRL DAY - Thursday February 20, 2020

For the past 7 years American Society of Civil Engineers Los Angeles Younger Member Forum (ASCE LA YMF) has hosted events in honor of National Engineers Week. Approximately 120 girls from grades 6th through 12th participated in this year’s Engineers Week - Girl Day at CalTrans 7 Headquarters on February 20, 2020.

Months of planning and preparation in the form of school visits, activity testing, and logistics coordination had to occur before the event could even take place and were led by Water Resources Engineer Monica Morales of Jacobs. In those pre-event meetings ASCE volunteers made sure that the activities would be fun and educational for all the girls involved. Spoiler alert: They were! We had 5 programs and schools participate including Girls Excelling in Math and Science (GEMS) program, DIY Girls, Girls Academic Leadership Academy (GALA), Girls Athletic Leadership School (GALS), and San Fernando High School.

Monica Morales introduced the opening speaker for the event, Deputy City Engineer Julie Sauter.

Volunteers then guided students to three different rooms where hands-on engineering activities occurred for the next two hours. Activities included using chemistry to make magnetic slime, a marshmallow structure competition with the tallest and most load-resistant structure, and wind car racing. All of the activities were fun. The girls improved upon our magnetic slime recipe, creating unique structures, and had a blast racing the cars built from paper, straws, and candy.

After the activities, the girls were assembled in a common space where they heard from Lastly, the winners of the Girl Day Essay Contest were announced by Monica Morales. The winners of the contest include Itzel Moreno-Esparza in 1st place, Laila Romero-Tovar in 2nd place, Enni Harlan in 3rd place, and Sahana Lindsey in 4th place. Congratulations on your scholarship prize awards for your essays on creating an invention to help engineers battle natural disasters!

The girls rushed outside to enjoy their boxed lunches and to have their Dream Big film posters signed with special messages by Menzer Pehlivan.

This event would not have been possible without the wonderful volunteers. We had over 20 volunteers helping plan, set up, lead activities, and clean up among other tasks. A special thank you to Jacobs for being our Girl Day sponsor, and for the helpful staff of Los Angeles Bureau of Engineering for their work securing the venue.