What is Tech Trek? And TTAG?

Tech Trek is a Science, Technology, Engineering, Math (STEM) camp designed to develop interest, excitement, and self-confidence in young women who will enter eighth grade in the fall. It features hands-on activities in STEM-related fields.

At the residential camps, campers live in the dorms and get some experience of what college life is like. At the virtual camp, campers Zoom in each day, and using the materials in the big camp kit they receive, engage in hands-on STEM activities from the comfort of their own homes.

In 2022, we started Tech Trek Alumnae Group (TTAG) for our branch. This group is led by former campers from both in-person and virtual camps. While we provide adult member guidance, the students plan and manage the meetings. They organize STEM-related facility tours, panels, and social events. The goal of this group is to provide support for our campers after camp and create a network for their future.

Through this new group, we plan to follow our students into their careers.

The How and Why of the Beginning of Tech Trek

The 1991 study Shortchanging Girls, Shortchanging America, researched and published by the AAUW Educational Foundation, as well as studies from other sources, indicated that young women tended to drop out of science and math courses during middle school years. In early adolescence, the research found, a focus on social acceptance begins to trump academic interests and achievement for many girls, even those who have previously been good and enthusiastic students. AAUW California decided to do something to stop this trend. That something was the Tech Trek Science and Math Camp for Girls, an idea conceived by AAUW California Program Director Marie Wolbach (Palo Alto, San Carlos) and encouraged by State President Karen Manelis (Fresno, Davis). The state board voted, in 1996, to apply for an EF (now called AAUW Fund) Community Action Grant to establish such a camp. Marie, Karen, and Fay Weber (Whittier) wrote the application for and received the $5,000 grant from AAUW National to hold a residential science and math camp. The first camp was in 1998 at Stanford University. There are now 10  camps throughout California.

In 2013, using our very successful California Tech Trek camps as their model, AAUW National began a National Tech Trek Pilot Program. Camps have been held in several states.

The Tech Trek History of the Branch

During 1998, Vicki Spilkin was president with no TT chair of our branch. Ann McDonald was our Education Community Chair, and she helped choose Jessica Kostewa from Parkway Middle School. A donor paid the $500 for the Tech Trek at Stanford and the branch paid for her airfare.

In 1999, Tech Trek started on the UCSD campus. Since then, our branch has provided at least eleven dorm monitors including a head dorm monitor, an assistant director, and several camp directors. We have sent almost 200 students to Tech Trek.

Virtual Tech Trek

When COVID-19 canceled the 2020 in-person camp experience, our camp coordinator (and La Mesa-El Cajon Branch member) Dr. Mary “Mimi” Isaac was already discussing options of pivoting the Tech Trek program into virtual possibilities with AAUW’s camp sponsors. She offered a virtual pilot of the robotics program to 40 campers in the Southern California area. She also recruited build coaches and other assistance from the support team that was set to provide for the in-person camp.

The success of the pilot resulted in expanding the virtual robotics core program statewide. The virtual program has been enhanced, adding STEM workshops and delivering it to all California branches and their selected campers. The three one-week camps served 640 students from 77 participating branches. Our branch sent 10 campers, who were a combination of 2020 selected campers who did not participate in the pilot and 2021 selected campers.

Virtual Tech Trek is designed to provide campers with exposure to computer science and engineering, along with workshops that explore individual STEM specialties more deeply using a hands-on or interactive approach. Hands-on activities, inspirational speakers, and interactive workshops help to make STEM subjects fun as well as educational. Trained instructors and coaching staff including near-peer Tech Trek alumnae, work alongside credentialed teachers, and women in STEM-related careers.

How to Be Involved

When you consider participating in one of our branch activities, you might think about being on the Tech Trek Committee. You will surely find that it is a win-win situation for you as well as some very deserving 12-year-old campers.  As a member of the committee, you will interface with middle school science/math teachers who nominate students to go to Tech Trek camp. You will read essays and participate in interviews as part of the process of choosing the students who will attend camp. You will be assigned a camper to assist in filling out forms and getting prepared to go to camp. During the process of getting ready for camp, campers and their families appreciate information, reassurance, and support provided by committee members.

Once the selected students go off to camp, committee members continue to follow their campers. You will want to go to camp on the designated visitor day to see the campers in their classes, excited about math, science, their field trips, and  connections made with women scientists and engineers. Visiting camp is an important event for all committee members, and we also have extended the invitation to members of our branch.

Though working on the TT committee involves a time commitment, be assured that there are usually very few complaints from the participants. Members become fully invested in the difference they are making in a young student’s life.  You should consider it too!