Our annual outreach programs include: conducting resume/interview workshops for our collegiate sections, high school Certificates of Achievement, four engineering workshop sessions for the Girl Scout Senior Leadership Conference, Junior Girl Scout Workshops and an elementary school-age Be an Engineer Workshop for National Engineers Week. We also sponsor a middle school math/science event with the Rhode Island American Association of University Women, provide judges and/or mentors for the FIRST LEGO League Competition for southeastern Connecticut middle school students and judge engineering and technology-based science projects by middle school girls in the RI Science Fair.

We developed a university course which we piloted for one day at URI during the 2006 SWE-sponsored National Engineers Week year, called Engineering Educators.  This allows education majors to interact with engineering majors, so each can become more familiar with the other's career.  After graduation and working in their chosen professions, the educators would be comfortable calling on the engineers to come into their classrooms as an extension to science activities, and the engineers would be more at ease talking to the students.

Long term plans include obtaining grants to make Engineering Educators a true accredited course at URI, and perhaps other universities in our area; working with collegiate sections for a high school/college/industry outreach; and creating an interactive middle school workshop on women in engineering.

In past years, our elementary school outreach was a Design Engineering Competition and our middle school outreach was a Women in Science and Engineering Essay Contest.

SWE-NESS has developed an outreach program for youth of all ages, from elementary school through college. Our goal is to expand the image of engineering as a potential career for all young people, regardless of gender or race. It is evident that the success of these and other programs depends on the growth of SWE-NESS and the participation of more members in Outreach activities. For questions on any of these programs, or if you would like to help us with one of these, please contact Susan Anderson.