I would recommend studying this paper, for a start.
http://www.kellrobotics.org/pdf/EWE.pdf
Way back in 2007 our team gave a presentation at FIRST Conferences.
http://first.wpi.edu/Workshops/2008CON.html
The notes are here:
http://first.wpi.edu/Images/CMS/Firs...Notes_1311.doc
The slides are here:
http://first.wpi.edu/Images/CMS/Firs...ering_1311.ppt
You have to get 'messages' right. Why engineering is important to our lives !! Energy, security, healthcare, transportation, etc. Surgical robots are not hobby rc things. They are important to improve the quality of healthcare.
The activities the team engages in, during and after the season sends messages to everyone including young women. You want students ( including girls ) to experience engineering as a fun and interesting experience. They need to be shown that it is REALLY important too !. A few months ago our team got to operate a $ 2,000,000 tandem DaVinci Surgical robot. We spent time with an OB-GYN and discusses how this robot is dramatically changing healthcare, especially for women.
The lecture above and the EWE paper discusses how grown women and high school girls are often disconnected when having career discussions. The first thing many girls want to know is what life is like as an engineer. If you ask a grown woman what they do, they will likely give you a resume, hence the disconnect.
On average, teenage boys and girls approach risk differently. On average, a boy will take a risk in order to not let others think that he doesn't know how to do something. On average, girls tend to hold back a little more and say "I don't know how to do .....".
By the time students reach high school they have learned that it isn't good to take a risk or show that you don't know something. You have to teach students how to take creative acceptable risks, that it is ok not to know the answers, and that together, we will make progress.
An interesting talk on creativity, from TED
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/ken...reativity.html
Mentors can play a big role in this process, both male and female mentors. They are role models and they can serve as effective facilitators in engaging students to work as a team and to allow others to participate in the risks of maybe doing or saying something 'dumb'. Don't call it dumb, call it creative !!
About 5 or 6 years ago the students created an online magazine that tried to send messages about engineering:
http://www.kellrobotics.org/pdf/Magazine.pdf
Literally about an hour ago I discovered this website:
http://www.engineeringmessages.org/ Imagine that. Changing the conversation. I have not had a chance to review the site. Hopefully it is good.
Our team is about half girls. Has been for 6 years. About half the girls that come in go on to engineering careers. And they had no prior inclination to do so.
Several times I have heard students talking, especially girls talking about how engineering and what they are working toward "is really important". That is a nice thing to hear.