A new NIU engineering camp gave area high school students the opportunity to become engineers for a week in July.

More than 35 students from DeKalb, Sycamore, Aurora, Rockford and surrounding areas participated in the camp, held July 16 through July 20. During the week, campers took part in interactive workshops and small-group projects covering topics such as static electricity, the electro-magnetic spectrum, radar experimentation and electrical and solar energy.

For many of the students, the highlight of the week was back-to-back field trips to Argonne National Laboratory and Motorola. At Argonne’s Advanced Photon Source facility, students learned how X-rays were produced to study diseases, and a tour of Motorola’s Innovation Center provided a close-up look at both the history and future of technology.

The camp was sponsored by Get WISE (Women In Step with Engineering), an outreach program run by NIU’s College of Engineering and Engineering Technology that encourages young women to explore the field of engineering through after-school activities, mentoring programs, scholarships and other opportunities.

“A lot of high school students don’t have a strong grasp of what engineering is; they think of it as something far removed from their lives,” said Regina Rahn, associate professor of industrial engineering at NIU and director of the Get WISE program. “This camp gives them an opportunity to bring engineering concepts to life.”

Rahn is encouraged by the camp’s first year: of the 36 participants, 30 were female. “It’s exciting to see so many girls getting this kind of exposure to engineering,” Rahn said. “We need to show girls at a young age that engineering is both interesting and important, and that girls are just as capable of being successful at it as boys are.”

Get WISE programs have been made possible thanks to the generous financial support of the E. Eugene Carter Foundation. The Carter Foundation believes that students from groups that are historically under-represented in engineering, including women, bring unique and substantially valuable perspectives that will benefit society as a whole.

- Abby Nall, NIU Public Affairs
- Photos by NIU Media Services