AEF CAMPAIGN CONNECTION
During classes, lively talks about engineering concepts and project management augment the hands-on learning. “Students have to think about the problem they’re trying to solve, how much time they have to solve it, the budget they have to stick within, the materials available to them, and other factors,” says Ms. Wilson- Ihejirika. The all-girl environment lets girls be girls. “It allows them to be in a safe space where they can learn and make mistakes, and they don’t have to feel like they’re being judged in any way.” Ms. Wilson-Ihejirika, currently on maternity leave from her job as a project development lead with Suncor Energy Inc., is a passion- ate supporter of science, math, engineering, and technology (STEM) education. The founder of BrainSTEM Alliance — a company that helps organizations incorporate STEM into their programming — she offered to help Girls Inc. get Operation SMART off the ground. “I thought it would be good to expose girls in Fort McMurray to engineering, especially with all the oil sands activity here. A lot of the local industry is based around engineering, science, and math,” she says. “I wanted to work with Girls Inc. so we could put this program in place, so the girls could see that there’s a lot of career opportunities right here in their hometown.” As a young girl in the Bahamas, Ms. Wilson-Ihejirika didn’t know much about engineering. “I just ended up choosing engineer- ing because I had to choose something to study,” she says. “I had always liked math and science, especially chemistry. I kind of stum- bled upon engineering and said, OK, let’s try this out. Then I went to university and realized I really liked it.” She came to Canada in 2006 to study chemical engineering at McGill University in Montreal, then, at the University of Toronto, completed a master’s degree in chemical engineering and applied chemistry. An internship with Suncor brought her to Fort McMur- ray. Soon she was volunteering with Operation SMART. “We really want to expose girls to engineering and show them that it can be fun — show them the creative side of engineering and how they can make a difference,” says Ms. Wilson-Ihejirika. Word is getting out and demand is growing. Since its inception four years ago, Operation SMART has increased to 30 participants from 10, About 20 volunteers — mostly female P.Eng.s and Engi- neers-in-Training — are vital to the program’s success. “The girls get to meet a bunch of female engineers. They see women can do these roles just as well as men can and are comfort- able doing them,” says Ms. Wilson-Ihejirika. Chemical engineer Loree D’Orsay, P.Eng., is one of those volunteers. She works with Ms. Wilson-Ihejirika at Suncor and has been an Operation SMART volunteer from the beginning. One of her aims is to help girls build confidence in themselves and their abilities. “I’ve heard a lot of girls say they can’t do math. That it’s a boy thing. So every message and every example that you can give a young girl — that they’re just as capable as boys are — is important. By exposing girls to women who have gone into the engineering field — that’s a strong message that they can achieve their dreams.” Ms. D’Orsay still remembers when engineering students vis- ited her high school in Nova Scotia. One of them pulled a ballpoint pen out of his pocket and talked about all the engineering that went
MAY THE FORCES BE WITH YOU Operation SMART volunteer Amie McGowan, P.Eng., discusses force and energy with participants as they design Rube Goldberg machines. -photo courtesy Girls Inc.
DIVERSITY STEPS
The APEGA Education Foundation funds several Alberta outreach programs — like Operation SMART — that encour- age students to explore math and science and to imagine their futures in the engineering and geoscience professions. Outreach programs are the first step to ensuring healthy and diverse professions. As part of its new business plan, the foundation — a Member-run group that operates at arms-length from APEGA — aims to increase its outreach funding from $95,000 to $145,000 annually. This will help attract more Alberta youths, especially girls and Aboriginals, into Profes- sional Engineering and Professional Geoscience careers.
14 | PEG WINTER 2015
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