Wallace Design Collective

This year, Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day falls on February 25th …or is it the 23rd? A quick Google search gives a variety of days, so I say let us make it a week! As a father to daughters, I try to treat every day like it is “introduce your daughter to engineering” day. Or at least “introduce your daughter to science” day. 

I might be one of the few who loves answering the repeated “Why?” game of my now four-year-old. I answer as honestly and as scientifically as possible. Sometimes this leads us to very interesting topics and things I have not really thought about before. I also don’t shy away from, “I don’t know, but let's make a hypothesis together and find out.” Anything I can do to help promote scientific curiosity in my book is a good thing.

So for this year’s Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day, check out some of the engineering/science activities here in Tulsa, OK. 

The Discovery Lab

The Discovery Lab, just south of the Gathering Place on Riverside Dr, is hosting an Introduce a Girl to Engineering Week with events every day. On Monday, they will focus on my specialty of structural engineering! Following topics are Electrical on Tuesday, Digital on Wednesday, Chemical on Thursday, and Aerospace on Friday.

Saturday and Sunday will be full of fun, age-based activities from 10:30 am to 3:00 pm. I love it when places to do this, otherwise my 4-yr-old is likely to be trampled by the older kids.

Full disclosure, my family does have a membership to the Discovery Lab and we love it!

The address and full list of engineering activities can be found on their website.

Tulsa Air and Space Museum & Planetarium

The Tulsa Air and Space Museum is a great place to go to learn all about airplanes, aerospace engineering, and space. Go and build your own aircraft in their simulator, or find out what it is like to fly in their flight lab. Or maybe you want to sit back, relax, and travel the cosmos in one of the eight shows at the planetarium. 

They offer several options for kids to have hands-on STEM education and tutoring through their Academy of STEM Explorers. They have a whole list of at-home stem activities that can be discovered here. 

Tulsa Regional STEM Alliance Online

Not in Tulsa or don’t have time to go out and about?  Head on over to the Tulsa Regional STEM Alliance website and check out their list of household STEM challenges to see how many you can complete.  Or you can check out the games they have available, from Coding games, to unplugged games, or online STEM lessons and STEM apps. They even have road trip STEM ideas to keep the boredom of all those long miles at bay. 

Needing even more? Check out their STEM in a bag series on youtube.

The University of Tulsa STEM Initiatives

The University of Tulsa is offering several STEM initiatives to engage the community. Be on the lookout for a variety of events geared to elementary students through high school students. Some of the events are annual and some meet monthly. These programs are a great way to not only introduce a girl to engineering but to keep the STEM learning up year round.

At-Home Subscription Boxes

Does the old engineering joke ring true for you? “How can you tell if an Engineer is an extrovert? They are staring at your shoes, not their shoes.” If going to a museum or lab isn't your or your child's speed, not to fear! There are tons of online content to get you started. My favorites to get you started are KiwiCo and Crunch Labs.

KiwiCo is a subscription service where you specify your child's age and you are sent age-appropriate STEM activities. They also offer one-time purchase activities if you are like me and always forget to cancel a subscription when you intend to.

Crunch Labs was started by Mark Rober, who you might remember from the porch pirate glitter bomb videos. He is a NASA engineer who does lots of YouTube videos and also as a subscription service. His build boxes are very engaging and I love watching his YouTube channel for his trial-and-error design process.

No matter what you choose, I promise you won’t regret getting your kids away from screen time for a few hours while you learn a little bit about engineering.

Do you have any engineering activities that you and your kids do that we should know about? Leave a comment and let us know.