Helping Pave the Way for Girls Through Transportation and Construction Girl Day Event

1. Girls building weight loading bridge at NPS booth.
2. A great penny bridge!
3. NPS talking to a class about careers in transportation.

The Denver Service Center (DSC) represented the National Park Service (NPS) at the Transportation and Construction Girl Day event in Golden, Colorado September 29, 2022. The DSC booth highlighted design elements of transportation construction for more than 600 girls attending, ranging in age from elementary through high school. The event was a great opportunity for NPS to engage with young women and girls to feature opportunities in this career field where only 11% of the U.S. construction workforce are women. NPS staff are committed to helping girls and young women discover opportunities available to them in transportation and construction related fields, as well as highlight various career opportunities the NPS has to offer. One goal of the event is for women to push past perceived stereotypes and pursue a career in transportation and construction.

The DSC booth highlighted the many opportunities NPS employees have to participate in construction, not only from a design perspective, but also from a resource protection perspective. The DSC booth was one of 52 exhibits featuring an interactive activity, with the participants building more than 150 bridges with just a sheet of paper and five paperclips to see how many pennies their bridge could support. While doing so, they interacted with NPS women engineers, landscape architects, compliance specialists, and revegetation specialists, giving their unique perspectives on how they ended up in their current position and why they were passionate about their work.

The event was sponsored by the HOYA Foundation, a non-profit group managing federal grants from the U.S. Department of Transportation to assist small, disadvantaged businesses in building their capacity. By helping develop minority and women owned companies, they seek to build sustainable and thriving communities. Each fall, they invite girls and young women in the Denver metro area to discover the many careers in transportation and construction. From exhibits with drones and simulators to engaging young speakers, it’s an inspiring day showing girls that anything is possible.