Over the past two years, a team of female faculty and industry innovators have collaborated to develop a new Junior (4th and 5th graders) Girl Scout badge in Mechanical Engineering. The activities required to earn the badge cover engineering careers, kinematics, thermal energy, design process, and learning about new technologies. The Girl Scout Council of Greater Atlanta is sponsoring our engineering badge as a “Council’s Own” badge. The badge is also sponsored by the ASME Design Engineering Division and Lockheed Martin. This paper serves as a structured guide to the process of creating a Girl Scout badge from scratch, to encourage and support the development of additional new badges. The process includes the following components: team assembly, curriculum research and development, piloting the badge, refinement, secondary badge piloting, and embodiment/deployment. Two workshops were delivered to Girl Scouts in parallel with the ASME IDETC 2015 and 2016 conferences, allowing the team to test and refine the badge activities. The first set of thirty-six Girl Scouts earned the badge during the workshop in August of 2016. In addition to a physical badge, the team has developed a badge guide and badge support website. The badge harmonizes with many activities in the Girl Scouts’ “Get Moving” Journey, helping to support troops pursuing those experiences in addition to earning the badge. By disseminating this experience and process through ASEE, the team hopes to encourage others to develop new badges and patches to enrich the Junior Girl Scout experience, especially in (but not limited to) STEM areas. Next steps include launching the badge to a national audience.
Morgan Stewart is a mechanical engineer at Sealed Air Corporation specializing in the design of industrial packaging and automation equipment. In June 2015, she completed her Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering at MIT. While attending MIT, Morgan taught engineering lessons to 4th-8th grade students as part of the MIT Edgerton Center. She continues her outreach efforts working with FIRST robotics teams, Girl Scouts, and local maker communities. Morgan works with schools, libraries, and makerspaces to design, document, and open source new lessons, projects, and technical solutions for the community.
Dr. Kate Fu is an Assistant Professor at Georgia Institute of Technology in Mechanical Engineering. Prior to this appointment, she has been a Postdoctoral Fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD). In May 2012, she completed her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. She received her M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon in 2009, and her B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Brown University in 2007. Her work has focused on studying the engineering design process through cognitive studies, and extending those findings to the development of methods and tools to facilitate more effective and inspired design and innovation.
Dr. Charlotte de Vries is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Penn State Erie, the Behrend College. She received her B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Massachusetts in 2009. She received her M.S. (2013) and Ph.D. (2014) in Mechanical Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University. She teaches Introduction to Engineering, Dynamics, System Dynamics, and Instrumentation, Measurement, and Statistics.
Laura Jacobson is a consultant at OM Partners, a company who makes Supply Chain Planning Software. She has been there for two and a half years analyzing processes and implementing planning software with a focus on standardization and performance optimization. In December 2013, she graduated from Georgia Institute of Technology with a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering with a focus on supply chain logistics. Her growing passion for Engineering stemmed from participating in Science Olympiad and Girl Scout activities. Currently, she is very active in her church community, assisting with the youth program and serving on two committees.
Dr. Jacquelyn K. Nagel is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Engineering at James Madison University. She has eight years of diversified engineering design experience, both in academia and industry, and has experienced engineering design in a ran
Kathy Jacobson, an ASME Fellow, has 30 years of industrial experience specializing in applying Design for Manufacturing and Affordability in the early product design phases. She has held positions with General Electric and Lockheed Martin in the areas of manufacturing engineering, systems engineering, finance, and conceptual design. She earned her B.S. in Engineering from UCLA. Kathy was a Girl Scout leader for thirteen years and is involved with developing STEM opportunities for girls in her GS council. She also volunteers with the Science Olympiad program at a local middle school and organizes state-wide Science Olympiad coaching workshops.
Allison recently moved back to Georgia to work for Girl Scouts of Greater Atlanta as the STEM Specialist after teaching Environmental Science and Biology to Middle and High School students in North Carolina. After becoming involved in Girl Scouts at age 8, Allison soon discovered her love for scouting, outdoor leadership, science, and teambuilding. In 2011, she graduated from GCSU with a BS in Outdoor Education and Environmental Science and in 2014 she graduated from UNCA as a certified History and Science teacher. She feels extremely fortunate to have found a career that connects the organization she believes in with a field she is passionate about.
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