Abstract: |
Ottawa is the centre of Canadian government, the National Research Council and the Canadian high-tech sector. It has three universities and a number of colleges. For over 20 years, the local and regional school boards, some private schools, and several colleges and universities have participated in the Enrichment MiniCourse (EMC) Program. This program is aimed at bright, gifted and highly motivated students in grades 8 through 12. The EMC data are combined with national enrolment data to qualitatively relate trends in EMC participation to those at the undergraduate level. It took a decade to raise participation of teenage girls in EMC science from 39% to 48%. In that same decade the participation in engineering improved from about 20% to 28%. The results show that unless substantive changes in outreach occur, 50/50 by 2020 is not an achievable target.
Index Terms ¾ engineering, outreach, science, youth, 50/50 by 2020 |
