XTO Energy recently teamed up with schools in Carlsbad, New Mexico, and Midland, Texas, to host “Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day.” This year marks the program’s 20th anniversary since its inception in 2003, with 16,000 students across the US having participated.
Employees of the ExxonMobil subsidiary were on hand in Carlsbad to assist 6th grade students as they engaged in a series of problem-solving activities through hands-on, interactive experiments including a waterflood field experiment.
In Midland, approximately 100 8th grade students attended the event at the Permian Basin Petroleum Museum’s new STEAM Education Center. While there, more than 20 XTO Energy engineers assisted students helping future scientists build mechanical pumpjacks and slingshot race cars while discussing the science behind it all.
"It's really about introducing STEM and really getting them or having this interaction at a very crucial age where they start selecting different course work that can really get them into STEM," Rayssa Sanchez, operations engineering manager of XTO shared with the media. "So, I really believe that this is the time where you can really make an impact; maybe by the time they're in college or later, it'll be a little bit too late to feed the pipeline."
The Society of Women Engineers reports that women account for only 13% of the engineering practice, jobs which are typically high-paying and in high demand.