“I met a lot of people and all of them inspired me to think about my future. This made me think… that I can do anything if I put my mind to it.” -Techbridge Student
Techbridge role models have come from diverse organizations such as... Autodesk, Carollo Engineers, Cisco Systems, Chevron, Clorox, eBay, Genentech, Google, IDEO, Intel, Juniper Networks, Lockheed Martin, NUMMI, Pixar Animation Studios, UC Berkeley, and UC San Francisco.
Your outreach could be next!
Resources For Role Models
Techbridge students cite the lasting impact of interactions with role models and work site field trips on their academic and career choices. Through our many years of experience working with role models, we have designed effective strategies for making your outreach or field trips a success.
Resource Guide and Toolkit
With funding from Google, we developed a resource guide to help role models and corporations host effective classroom visits and worksite field trips. A toolkit CD accompanies this guide, containing files of sample hands-on activities, icebreaker activities, Future Engineer Certificate, and other resources to make your outreach fun and engaging.
Download these resources:
Get Involved. Make A Difference. A Guide for Classroom Visits and Field Trips for K-12 Students.
Role Model Toolkit Part 2: Icebreakers and Activities
Role Model Toolkit Part 3: Future Engineer Certificate
Training Workshops
Techbridge designs and conducts workshops for role models on how to engage girls in the classroom or during worksite visits. We have conducted these workshops at corporate partner sites as well as the Techbridge office. A workshop typically includes:
• Tips and practical advice for communicating meaningfully to young girls
• Ideas for hands-on projects and icebreakers
• Customized follow-up guidance if needed
Techbridge is hosting its next general role model training on October 25, 2008 from 9-11am. If you are interested in attending or would like to receive information about future trainings on how to work with students in your community please contact us at techbridge@chabotspace.org.
Additional Resources Online
The following websites are targeted towards role models and mentors and contain other useful recommendations.
The Role Model Program contains downloadable tips, planning tools, and lessons for role models to use in role model outreach with elementary school and middle school students.
MentorNet provides resources for mentors, such as websites, suggested reading, bibliography, articles, and newsletters. Sign-up to the MentorNet community is required.
iMentor has an online “link-epicenter” database which contains hundreds of internship, scholarship, college and job training links proven useful in iMentor's programming.
Mentoring-in-a-Box: Technical Women at Work was created by NCWIT and the Anita Borg Institute to help women and men in industry start and sustain a purposeful and rewarding mentoring relationship. The complete contents of the toolkit are downloadable online.
Engineer Your Life is a guide to engineering for high school students. The site also contains a section for current Engineers to discover compelling ways to inspire the next generation of Engineers.
Expanding You Horizons encourages girls to consider careers in science, technology, engineering and math. They have resources for adults to mentor and motivate girls.
