CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- Take an old refrigerator and a little bit of sunshine and the result, for some young Chicago women, is a day at the races at Daley Plaza.
ComEd held its annual Icebox Derby, which offers local girls the chance to explore STEM careers while earning scholarships, Saturday at Daley Plaza under a perfect summer sky.
Thirty young women 13 to 18 participated in the sixth-annual event, which was developed to help teen girls develop and maintain an interest in career STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) fields.
Several groups of high school girls came together with their mentors to build a solar-powered race car out of a used refrigerator and then raced around the Picasso statue.
ComEd CEO Joe Dominguez told WBBM, "Right now, we just don't have enough young women going into science, engineering, technology and math.We just don't have enough talent coming in that are women that are excited about these technologies. And what we find is that society doesn't steer them to science and technology careers, so we're trying to correct that."
Heather Chang, who is entering her senior year at Naperville North High School, drove her icebox car in the competition.
"I think that overall that whole (STEM) environment can be a little intimidating for females and it only gets more male-dominated as you get along higher. So, I think overall that encouragement, that support of other female engineers is really, really powerful and it helped me and empowered me to know I can do this. I can pursue a career in STEM," Chang said.
Each Icebox Derby participant will receive a $1,500 scholarship.