ERIE, Pa. — Melanie Ford has a knack for giving kids permission to try, and to fail. The failing part, she said, is often where learning occurs.
Ford is the director of K-12 Youth Education Outreach (YEO) at Penn State Behrend, where she also serves as an associate teaching professor of computer science and software engineering. She was honored this month with a "Women Making History" Award from the Mercy Center for Women.
The recognition reflects the work of many, Ford said, including colleagues, teachers, parents and volunteers who helped build a handful of classroom visits into a coordinated K-12 effort that has reached more than 30,000 students across the Erie region.
Ford talked with Penn State News about how she found her way into youth outreach and why giving students room to try, test and rethink their ideas remains at the heart of her work.
Q: How did you first become involved in youth outreach?
Ford: It started small. I started working in the School of Engineering in 2002. A few years later, I started doing some Math Options workshops.
In 2006, a group of engineering faculty started the Women in Engineering program. At about the same time, I began volunteering with my son’s Cub Scout group. That led to classroom visits, and then to more teachers inviting me in. It all kind of grew by word of mouth.
I loved creating design challenges and watching students discover what engineers actually do. In Erie, because of GE and Wabtec, a lot of kids think an engineer drives a train. Showing them the creativity and possibility behind the field is exciting — for them, and for me.
By 2014, we brought K-12 programs across the college together under the umbrella of Youth Education Outreach so we could expand, seek funding and track our impact. What began as a few activities became something much bigger.
Q: What do you enjoy most about working with K-12 students?
Ford: I love getting kids excited about the STEAM fields, showing them all the possibilities, and challenging them. So many times, kids will say, “I can’t do this. Just give me the answer,” and we tell them, there isn’t one answer.
You have to try. Play around. Test. Adjust. And then, suddenly, the ideas start flowing.
I’ve given a design challenge to college students, and they’ll insist it can’t be done. But elementary-grade students can solve it three different ways. Somewhere along the way, we lose that creative confidence. I want kids to hold onto it.
Q: Why are early STEAM experiences so important?
Ford: These students are our future. A student might say, “I want to be an astronaut,” and that’s wonderful, but NASA hires thousands of engineers, scientists, communicators, HR professionals, and more.
There are many paths to the work that excites you. When students see that, doors open.
Q: Is there a moment that captures why this work matters?
Ford: We once worked with 150 fifth-graders from a rural school on a design challenge. A few groups quickly decided it couldn’t be done and gave up. But two boys in the back came up with a design and rushed down to prove to me that it worked. It did. Then they came up with two more approaches. They tested three different designs — and all three worked.
The kids who had given up were top-performing students. The boys who solved the problem three times were learning-support students. They often struggled in traditional classes, but they were the stars that day.
Q: What do students teach you?
Ford: That I do not know all the answers. I have done some design challenges for years, using the same materials and parameters, and kids still come up with new solutions.
Q: When did you realize the scale of YEO’s impact?
Ford: I remember reviewing our master spreadsheet and seeing that we had engaged more than 30,000 students. I recalculated several times, because I couldn’t believe it. That’s nearly three times the number of students in Erie County.
I serve as the adviser for the Society of Women Engineers club at Behrend. Several of those students were former YEO program participants, attending events like Math Options and Women in Engineering day. Now, they volunteer at those events, hoping to inspire and mentor the next generation of female engineers.
Q: What does the Mercy Center for Women award mean to you?
Ford: It’s humbling. I’m just a farmer’s daughter from a small town who learned to try and see what happens.
I’ve been fortunate to work alongside so many wonderful people who believe in what we are doing and say “yes” to new ideas – faculty who lead workshops, staff who haul supplies and move tables and chairs, teachers who bring their students, and a team that turns my crazy ideas into real programs. None of this happens alone.