CYBERMENTORS
Web mentors hook girls on science
September 25, 2009
Lauren La Rose
THE CANADIAN PRESS
With three older sisters in engineering and a fourth in health sciences, it's not surprising that Holliston Logan has also been bitten by the science bug.
From a young age, the 17-year-old said she always liked learning the mechanics and science behind things.
But despite the strong family pedigree in the field, when it comes to questions concerning the areas of study, future education and career aspirations, Logan isn't necessarily calling on her elder siblings – she emails her mentor.
The Grade 12 student from Cochrane, Alta., is a participant in Cybermentor www.cybermentor.ca, a web-based mentoring program that matches girls aged 11 to 18 with female scientists and engineers, and is designed to encourage young women to consider careers in those professions.
Mentors and participants must be available to communicate regularly online throughout the school year, as well as sending messages at least once weekly. Program collaborators include the University of Calgary, the University of Alberta and the Alberta Women's Science Network.
Elizabeth Cannon, dean of the Schulich School of Engineering at the University of Calgary, said they wanted to establish an ongoing program that was also able to reach young women beyond Calgary and Edmonton, since a significant proportion of the province's population lives in rural areas.
"We thought an email mentoring program really would be unique and novel ... and provide us a means to be able to connect most of the mentors who are in the major centres to a large extent with young women across the province, so it didn't really matter where they were."
While the program originally started as a one-on-on mentoring program, it has since evolved to keep pace with the growth of Internet and social networking, creating a more interactive environment and fostering an online community.
"There's a whole level of additional sophistication in the system to allow our mentees and mentors to network with each other, to be able to have better discussion groups that are online learning," said Cannon. "The materials that we can load up onto the site are more sophisticated, so we can really complement the individual relationships with a lot of additional value added."
While participants have been limited to Alberta, some mentors have come from outside the province because they may have had a connection there or once lived there, Cannon said.
"What we've effectively done is created the blueprint, but the program has already been modelled in a few jurisdictions ... we're quite willing to share and to be able to have it adopted elsewhere."
With school back in session, organizers are recruiting prospective participants and mentors.
Logan plans to continue working with her current mentor, Deanna Burgart.
Burgart, who has been a mentor since 2005, worked as an engineering technologist for various oil and gas companies in Calgary. The mother of two is currently completing a chemical engineering degree at Lakehead University in Ontario.
"I believe that engineering is still relatively underrepresented by females, and a lot of times it's just not something that, until recently, has been promoted or talked about at the junior high, high school level," said Burgart from Thunder Bay, Ont. "I remember when I was in high school I knew very little about what an engineer did. I knew I enjoyed math and science, but it was never even mentioned."
"A lot more women are coming into the profession now, which is good to see, so I wanted to get involved to actually promote engineering as a feasible career."
Logan believes the program is beneficial for girls even if they aren't interested in math and science.
"It's great to just meet people who have done interesting things with their careers that you can learn from and learn more about the people themselves."
Case in point: when she first started communicating with Burgart she wanted to know about other aspects of her life, like what she did in her spare time.
"I think if you want to establish a good relationship with someone, you need to know more than about just what they do at their jobs."
Burgart shares that sentiment.
"I ask her how her classes are going, what's she taking," she said. "She can ask me any questions she likes about engineering or about courses that will lead into engineering. But we've gotten to the point now where we know each other, we talk about everything."
Logan is thinking about pursuing a degree in either mechanical or chemical engineering with a specialty in biomedical. She said Burgart has given her tips on preparing for university and has even sent her papers she's written "so I can get a feel for what she's doing."
"Holly herself has just impressed me with her initiative and enthusiasm for science and her openness to learning about all different aspects to it, to make her own decisions as to where she wants to go," said Burgart.
Logan said she would love to be a mentor after she's a few years into her degree program. She would also like to keep in touch with Bugart and other former mentors.
"They're great friends now, and it's nice to have someone you can talk to outside of your family and your immediate circle."
thestar.com