Empowering Young Women
Tech Trek Camp 2024 was a huge success this summer!
We have officially melded the Poway/PQ and the RB branch efforts and are finding amazing girls from 7 PUSD middle schools now. We have terrific collaborations with the teachers and counselors at each school. We chose 12 girls to attend. Eleven went to the UCSD week long camp in June, and one completed it virtually in July. We’ve had great feedback from the girls and their parents. In fact, one of the moms joined AAUW after the camp and wants to join the TT committee. It’s such an inspirational week for these families. The girls will be seeing each other again and meeting all our branch members at our general meeting on Saturday, Sept 14, 2024. We really look forward to that.
Tech Trek committee leaders Debbie Lewis (far left) and Heidi Dalve (fourth from right) with 8 of the 12 local girls our branch sent to camp t UCSD this year.
Our focus is on continuing to build our TTAG Alumni Group (see below) and increase our fundraising efforts. The camp cost $1000 per camper and that is expected to rise. If you know of a company or individual that may be interested in supporting STEM for our future campers, please contact us at powaypqtechtrek@gmail.com
Tech Trek is an AAUW sponsored math/science camp designed to develop interest, excitement, and self-confidence in young women who will enter eighth grade in the fall. This one-week summer camp is backed by AAUW’s research and designed to make science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) subjects exciting and accessible to girls in middle school – the age when girls’ participation in these fields statistically drops. At camp, girls are assigned to a math or science core class, and spend a week learning about their field, doing hands-on experiments and working with other girls under the instruction of credentialed, female middle school teachers and of women currently engaged professionally in math, science or technology fields. For many girls, the week long camp sparks their curiosity and places them on a path toward success.
If you know a young woman who would be interested in participating in our 2025 camp session and will be entering eight grade in the fall in the Poway Unified School District area*, please contact us at aauwboard@gmail.com, for more information.
* Camps are held during the summer. Eligible participants will enter 8th grade the school year immediately after.
If you have never seen the video that demonstrates the diversity of Tech Trek, watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea3-wTzTZM8
All camps are dependent on volunteers. Regardless of the amount of time you can volunteer, there are opportunities to help. Volunteers are as much role models as teachers and counselors. In the past, volunteers have been needed for registration and to cover a classroom session for the dorm moms to attend a staff meeting. This is a fun way to observe a hands-on lesson! If you would like to be a daily volunteer at camp next summer, contact us with any questions you may have. All daily volunteers need to be AAUW members for insurance purposes and need to complete the Volunteer Conduct Agreement form.
If you want to be more involved than those duties above, there are also more extensive roles as teachers, coaches and presenters. You can apply here: https://www.aauw-ca.org/tech-trek-volunteer/
STEM Company Tours for our Tech Trek Girls
Our Tech Trek girls would like to keep in touch with each other, to continue their Tech Trek friendships and keep motivated about STEM.
We can help them do that!
We are starting out by planning an event for the girls to gather in person, socialize, learn about a STEM subject and keep in touch with our branch.
We would like to take the girls on a tour of local STEM companies, showing them how they, too, can work in STEM fields some day. At each event we will tour one company, plus have time for travel to and from, socialization and maybe sharing snacks or a meal.
This is where we need your help. Do you have a friend, family member or neighbor who works in a STEM field and who might be interested in giving a tour of their workplace to the Tech Trek girls? Perhaps a veterinarian’s office? Engineering firm? Chemistry lab? No company is too large or too small. The tour groups would be small, probably about 5-7 girls, plus a few branch leaders. A female tour guide would be ideal. Our first company tour will be held in January.
Please let one of our branch coordinators know of any companies (or contacts at one of the local colleges/universities) you recommend. We will contact them and start making connections to help our Tech Trek girls. You may contact us at aauwboard@gmail.com
Heidi Dalvie, Ellen Dillon, Debbie Lewis
Poway-Penasquitos Branch Tech Trek Co-Coordinators
Past Tech Trek Camps
Tech Trek 2023.
The in-person Tech Trek camp at UCSD was held Jun 25-30th. We sent seven girls from three middle schools. All had a fantastic time!
The virtual Tech Trek camp was Jul 23-28. We had one camper attend, who also enjoyed her experience.
Tech Trek 2022.
Two Tech Trek camps were held. Many California camps were held in person and we are expecting next year to return to in-person camps, also.
Our branch sent 7 girls to camp in 2022, each girl receiving a robotics kit with necessary supplies. The girls had several STEM-related courses throughout the week and their primary project was to learn how to create “Wearable Tech”, with electronic parts that moved, blinked and turned. Since each girl was working alone from her own home, she needed to communicate and collaborate very closely with the coaches to learn the appropriate skills to create her “Wearable Tech”.
Feedback after the camps was very positive!
Having not meet in person, the girls were invited to come early to brunch to meet each other and take a group photo. Then each girl had the opportunity to present to our club their camp experience and demonstrate their “Wearable Tech” project. We also invited Madeline Campbell, a young Mechanical Engineer and previous Tech Trek camper, now working at Element Biosciences. She told us about her experience working in a STEM field.
Tech Trek “Virtual” Camp – 2020/2021
With the cancellation of the traditional, in-person Tech Trek camps in 2020 due to the pandemic, creative minds rose to the challenge and put together a “virtual” camp. The “virtual” camp allowed 40 girls to attend Tech Trek 2020 from August 3-7, 2020 from their computers at their own homes. The “virtual” camp was a great success!
When the 2021 Tech Trek residential camp was also cancelled, the “virtual” Tech Trek camp was expanded into 2021 and the invitation to attend was expanded to Tech Trek selected girls from the whole state of California. There were over 300 girls in three different camp weeks, one in June and two in July 2021. AAUW members from area branches, including three from our branch, volunteered to help as “Build Coaches” or “Social Coaches” during the camp. The camps taught the girls robotics and coding. The participant girls were delivered kits with all of the materials in advance of the camp. Throughout the course of the week, each camper created personalized hats with pieces that moved and lights that flashed. Each of the girls made a short video of themselves presenting their hats, which was consolidated into a video program presented to all campers on their last day of camp.
Here is a link to the videos of our girls giving their presentations at the end of camp.
https://flipgrid.com/+alukf9kp
Dr. Mary Isaac (the director of the 2020 and the 2021 camps), AAUW, and Qualcomm worked together to create these alternative camps.