KU News Release

Teen girls gain hands-on engineering experience in KU's Project Discovery

LAWRENCE -- Forty-five high school students from six states took part in the University of Kansas School of Engineering Project Discovery in June and July.

Project Discovery is a weeklong residential camp at KU that lets high school girls explore the different fields of engineering in a hands-on, no-pressure setting. Two sessions are held every summer, and participants can choose one of six engineering disciplines on which to focus.

The camp is designed to encourage girls to pursue studies in engineering by showing them the breadth of career opportunities available to engineers.

The program covers broad topics important to engineering, such as ethics and teamwork, as well as provides coursework in their chosen field. During the camp, participants complete a project under the guidance of KU faculty members. In addition, the girls take tours and field trips and prepare an oral presentation about their projects that they deliver before their parents, professors and fellow campers at a banquet on the last day of camp.

Students could choose to learn about aerospace engineering, architectural engineering, biomechanical engineering, chemical engineering, civil engineering, and computer engineering and computer science.

Students who took part in the camp are listed below by their schools, the session they attended, the discipline they studied and their hometowns.

Kansas schools: Abilene, Andover, Baldwin, Bishop Seabury Academy, Blue Valley, Burlington, Free State in Lawrence, Larned, Lawrence, Neodesha, Olathe, Pratt, Shawnee Mission district, St. Thomas Aquinas, Topeka and Wichita. From other states: Bartlesville, Okla.; Belleville East, Ill.; Brookfield East, Wis.; Crossroads, St. Louis, Mo.; Excelsior Springs, Lawson, Mo.; Hillcrest, Springfield, Mo.; Lincoln College Prep, Kansas City, Mo.; North Lawndale College Prep Charter, Chicago, Ill.; Riverview, Urbandale, Iowa; Rockwood Summit, Fenton, Mo.; Rosati-Kain, St. Louis, Mo.; St. Francis Borgia Regional, Marthasville, Mo.; and Stratford, Houston, Texas.

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