Vanessa and Alejandra are building a huge wooden dollhouse, 3 feet wide, with four rooms, furniture, wallpaper, and lights that turn on and off.
Alyssa Mae and Melina are creating a miniature balsa-wood bridge, connecting and supporting the span at key angles to carry substantial weight.
The teen ladies are participants in Natomas High School’s Engineering Pathway for students drawn to a STEAM education, an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics.
“I like to be creative,” Alyssa Mae said. “I already have imagination to build things out of the blue – now all I need is this class (to learn how.)”
The Natomas High pathway has a welcome mat out for ladies, currently a minority in the three-year engineering program that teaches students to plan, design and build projects using physics, woodworking, computer software, electronics, microprocessors, and whatever else is necessary.
Teacher Bert Pinsky said that females are in demand in college engineering programs and in the engineering profession itself. Learning basic skills and becoming adept at designing and using tools of the trade “opens the whole world for them,” he said.
The pathway emphasizes teamwork, collaboration, analytical thinking, and problem-solving. Students learn to make assembly drawings and use online software to create three-dimensional models. They learn how to write a proposal, and to document their progress.
Last year, for example, Nighthawk engineering students designed and built wooden planter boxes for the Folsom Zoo.
Natomas High’s three-year Engineering Pathway requires students to take “Introduction to Engineering” as sophomores, then “Principles of Engineering” as juniors, and then conclude the three-year program with “Engineering Research and Development” as seniors.
Later this year, Pinsky hopes to introduce students to robotics.
“I’ve learned to do things that I never thought I’d be able to do, me being me – I’m so girlie,” said Vanessa, smiling. “This is something I’d never expect myself to be in, but I enjoy it, so I’m glad I joined it.”
Vanessa said her curiousity about engineering was piqued, several years ago, when Natomas High’s Engineering Pathway held a recruiting event in which girls participating in the pathway urged younger girls to get involved. “I thought it was cool,” she said.
Alyssa Mae’s curiousity about engineering was sparked by envy: Her younger brother was good at changing channels on the family’s X Box. She wanted her mother to be able to depend on her for such things, too. “I personally wanted to be more like my brother,” she said.
Melina says “I like putting things together,” so even while she was in middle school, she was interested in engineering.
One thing all four lady Nighthawks agree on is that even if they don’t continue studying engineering in college and eventually land a job in that field, skills they’re learning in the Natomas High pathway can be put to good use as adults – decorating a house, repairing a mechanical item, or building a storage shed, for example.
“I think it will be really fun to do my own DIY – (do-it-yourself) – projects, just as a habit,” Alyssa Mae said, smiling.
