Girlgeneering vs. Entry to Engineering: Engineering Outreach Program Comparison of a Girls-Only vs. Co-Ed Engineering Summer Camp

This paper will provide a comparison of two one-week long engineering summer day camps that were held in Summer 2008 by the College of Engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington. One camp was a coeducational camp called Entry to Engineering for students entering 6 th , 7 th , or 8 th grades in Fall 2008. This camp is part of the UTA Engineering and Computer Science Summer Camps that have been running since 1998. The second camp was a newly inaugurated camp called Girlgeneering. This camp was for girls entering the 6 th , 7 th , 8 th or 9 th grades in Fall 2008. The new Girlgeneering camp was modeled after the structure of the Entry to Engineering camp with some specific modifications for its audience that will be discussed. In the paper we will discuss the goals for the two camps, the differences in the planning for the camps, and the staffing for the camps. We will also talk about our rationale for the ways in which the camps were planned differently. We will then talk about the ways in which the camps themselves were similar and were different in a variety of areas including student engagement, development of student subgroups (cliques), camper behavior, responses to camp activities, and other topics. We will include qualitative feedback from the campers and from staffers about the camps. We will close with a discussion of the benefits of the two types of camps and our plans for the future. The paper will be co-authored by the faculty camp director, the staff member camp assistant director, and will include comments from student camp staffers.