On Feb. 19, Columbia Gas of Ohio team members welcomed the Girl Scouts of Ohio’s Heartland back to the Arena District office for the seventh Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day. The day, organized by NiSource employee resource group DAWN (Dedicated to Advancing Women at NiSource), is filled with fun and excitement for young girls, but its goal is critically important: To show young girls that a career in engineering or in STEM is within reach.
The day began like any meeting at Columbia Gas, with a safety moment from Safety & Health Coordinator Beth Johnson and opening remarks from Operational Excellence Vice President Lauren Grether, before breaking the girls out into groups for a Rube Goldberg Challenge. Each group built a Rube Goldberg machine – an overly complicated device that completes a simple task – and the groups received awards for best teamwork, most creative and most functional overall. This activity, led by Field Engineer Alison Garbash, isn’t just a fun way to start the day, said Environmental Principal and DAWN member Kristy Monk, it’s also a great way for the young girls to break the ice and get energized for the day ahead.
“I think when they come in in the morning, they’re thinking, why am I here, why am I coming here when I have a day off from school? But when you get started with the Rube Goldberg experiment, they’re really engaged,” Kristy said. “They’re very happy and surprised when they get awards.”
Columbia Gas/NiSource team members guided and encouraged the girls throughout the day, and many volunteers are engineers themselves. One such volunteer is Project Management Manager and DAWN member Lisle Shaner.
“We heavily focused on trying to figure out the different aspects of actually doing the Rube Goldberg machine, so I had the Girl Scouts working like a mini engineering team, thinking about planning the project and planning individual pieces of the project and testing them to see what it would do,” Lisle said. “We tried to get a little deeper into that engineering aspect and see what we could figure out. It was fun.”
Lauren, Gas Distribution Construction Vice President Ashley Weaver and Business Transformation & Governance Vice President Chuck Shafer served as judges for the event.
After the Rube Goldberg Challenge, the Girl Scouts split into two groups to engage in an environmental activity led by Environmental Coordinator Tiffany Fritchley and a gas safety demonstration led by Senior Technical Trainer Rose Berendt. In the environmental activity, girls see the effects of erosion on an environment and create a plan to mitigate it, just like what team members at Columbia Gas do when planning new projects. The gas safety demonstration, which includes a controlled explosion, is often the girls’ favorite part of the day.
“Everyone was kind of commenting on the excitement, energy you could feel even outside of the room,” said Financial Planning & Analysis Manager and DAWN member Brittany Wenger. “The gas demonstration team said the Girl Scouts are always the most engaged and ask the best questions, so they love that part of the day and they’re super engaged and jump in and raise their hands to ask questions.”
Then the group broke for lunch and Ashley announced the winners of the Rube Goldberg Challenge. Columbia Gas of Ohio engineers Meghan Clement, Kristin Yorko and Heidi Zacher-Shockey alongside Lisle led a roundtable and accepted questions from the Girl Scouts. At the end of the day, Columbia Gas/NiSource team members passed out goodie bags with candy, plastic hard hats and a friendship bracelet making kit before sending the Girl Scouts back home.
While women have become more prevalent in engineering and STEM careers, there is still plenty of work to do to encourage young girls to pursue a career in this rewarding industry, and Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day is part of that effort.
“Back then, it was me and one other woman in class, or just me,” said Kristy of her college engineering program. “Sadly, I don’t think it’s changed that much. It’s not like it’s 50/50 like we thought it would be 30 years ago. It’s very important to show what career possibilities are out there.”
Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day doesn’t just expose young girls to a career in engineering, it also shows them what it might look like to work at NiSource/Columbia Gas.
“Stuff like this is a good pipeline into getting people to understand what companies are out there and what paths you can take,” Lisle said. “I think we do a pretty good job at our executive levels of having women, and several of them are in engineering. Being able to show that there are job opportunities everywhere, this is kind of getting the foot in the door that these are job opportunities some day.”
