Nearly 100 Girl Scouts from southeastern Michigan worked to earn badges and learn STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) concepts at the third annual Kettering University Girl Scout STEM Daycamp on September 6.

This is the third year for the program, and an increase in volunteers this year allowed female Kettering University students to mentor an even larger number of Girl Scouts.

“We had about 20 Kettering volunteers this year, and that really allowed us to grow,” said Beth Facemire, a Mechanical Engineering major and organizer of this year’s event. “In the past, we’ve only had about 50 girls in the camp. This year, we were able to serve a lot more young girls and help encourage them to explore STEM-related fields.”

Girl Scouts participated in many different activities to earn badges, including extracting DNA from fruit, examining characteristics of fingerprints and removing items from scenes, then re-examining the scenes to see if they could tell what was missing.

The program was started by Elizabeth McLean, a 2014 Kettering University graduate. McLean was hoping to supplement Kettering’s programs like LITE (Lives Improve Through Engineering), AIM (Academically Interested Minds), Camp Kettering and the SWE (Society of Women Engineers) Expo that largely target high school age girls with a program specifically geared toward younger women.

“Many different studies have shown that once a girl loses her interest in math or science, the early elementary years being the most prominent, she is not likely to regain that interest,” McLean said. “I started this program with the hope that it would help develop a STEM pipeline at our University that Kettering women can play a large part in facilitating. My goal was and is to help maintain that STEM interest in young girls through exciting, interactive activities and provide an opportunity for them to be inspired by and interact with collegiate females in STEM fields.”

The activities are designed to be interactive, so that participants are not only learning some science and math concepts, they’re seeing how those concepts connect to practical applications.

“My biggest hope is that these girls will relate the activities back to what they learn in the classroom every day and understand how those subjects can be a lot of fun,” McLean said. “It can be really hard to see how arithmetic can ever be exciting, but when we are showing how math can be used to make a movie or design a video game, the hope is the girls remember how much fun they had and stay interested. Another big hope is that through meeting Kettering women who are both studying STEM and working in the field our participants will realize STEM is a career path they can pursue.”

McLean is encouraged by the program’s growth and always envisioned it as something that could continue and be expanded by future groups of Kettering students.

“When I started the program I fully envisioned it being a permanent staple at our University that was sustained by current students,” McLean said. “Girl Scouts of Southeastern Michigan has been a huge part getting this program coordinated every year as well as many of our own Kettering faculty and staff who have either brought their troops to the program or volunteered to help with the weekend. I definitely hope to have Kettering female students to continue to run this event with the Girl Scouts of Southeastern Michigan and would love for it to become an “official” Kettering pre-college program.”