Engineering Your Tomorrow
Feb 22, 2020 Sussex & NCC Events
Thanks to all the organizers and sponsors of these two great events for a great day! On
February 22, I had the pleasure of observing two great Engineering Your Tomorrow (EYT)
events! This year was the first time two EYT events were held on the same day in Delaware. The
New Castle County event ( 30th Annual) was held at the Conrad Schools of Science, located in
Newport, DE. The Sussex County event ( 3rd Annual) was held at the Delaware Technical
Community College (DTCC) in Georgetown, DE.
Middle school girls and their parents engaged in STEM activities with more than 80 professional
women volunteers. The girls and parents learned how exciting Science and Engineering can be.
The volunteers from DuPont, Sussex County STEM Alliance (SCSA), the University of Delaware
and others helped the girls to see that, despite many negative influences in their lives, they can
become successful women engineers and scientists – and be paid very well at that!
With a 30-year history, EYT has refined an excellent program, with the extra dimension of
involving parents in the exhilaration. With more awareness throughout the state, companies,
schools and families that handle their own events could, in fact, learn from successful events
and even join forces with EYT and leverage the power of STEM learning efforts.
All you had to do to see this success was to watch the excitement of the girls as they
experienced science and engineering – and fun – with STEM professionals. The panel and Q/A
events for the parents included shared stories of how they got to where they are and what
obstacles they overcame.
I’ll let the organizers summarize their own events, but I want to reinforce how involved and
difficult it is to execute effective, quality STEM activities. Not only do the girls and parents give
up a full Saturday out of their busy lives, but also volunteers, mostly women STEM professional
scientists and engineers, must be recruited and trained. Additionally, there is the need for
funding for lunches, buildings, materials and designing exciting things to do. In total over 80
professionals gave up a day to provide an amazing day for over 150 middle school girls and their
parents.
This year’s EYT was the third held downstate, sponsored by SCSA, Avalanche industries,
University of Delaware and Delaware Technical Community College. The New Castle County EYT
was sponsored by DuPont and Girls, Inc.
Our thanks and compliments to all who organized and delivered an amazing day.
Randy Guschl
Executive Director
Delaware Foundation for Science and Math Education (DFSME)