Girls dig science and engineering
Sophomore girls from 10 different North Idaho high schools participated in the hands-on Women in Science and Engineering event on Wednesday, sponsored by the University of Idaho. Here, a group of girls creates a race car powered from the spring mechanism of a mousetrap. From left, Maddison White, Sally Gatten and Carli Reeves. HANNAH NEFF/Press
Sophomore girls work to create a race car using a mousetrap, CD's, and other supplies at the hands-on Women in Science and Engineering event on Wednesday sponsored by the University of Idaho. Handling the tape is Iliana Lewis. HANNAH NEFF/Pres
Sophomore girls from North Idaho schools participated in the hands-on Women in Science and Engineering event sponsored by the University of Idaho on Wednesday. Pictured here from left, Maddison White (in plaid), Iliana Lewis, Sally Gatten and Carli Reeves. HANNAH NEFF/Press
Sophomore Gabriella Inlow of St. Maries High School sketches down what she sees in through the microscope at the hands-on Women in Science and Engineering event sponsored by the University of Idaho on Wednesday. HANNAH NEFF/Press
From left, Jaelyn Barden and Kara Sexton, sophomores at St. Maries High School, collect water from Lake Coeur d'Alene to view under microscope at the hands-on Women in Science and Engineering event sponsored by the University of Idaho on Wednesday. HANNAH NEFF/Press
From left, Jaelyn Barden and Kara Sexton, sophomores at St. Maries High School, collect water from Lake Coeur d'Alene to view under microscope at the hands-on Women in Science and Engineering event sponsored by the University of Idaho on Wednesday. HANNAH NEFF/Press
Kara Sexton, a sophomore at St. Maries High School, collects water from Lake Coeur d'Alene to view under a microscope at the hands-on Women in Science and Engineering event sponsored by the University of Idaho on Wednesday. HANNAH NEFF/Press
It was an all-hands-on-deck competition.
Sophomore girls gathered items from a table of supplies and grouped up in small teams to create race cars, powered from the spring mechanism of a mousetrap.
“I’d say when you look at it, it looks pretty hard and scary,” said Maddison White, a sophomore from Wallace Jr./Sr. High School. “Then when you have a whole bunch of people with you to make you feel comfortable, I’d say when everybody listened to each other’s ideas, it works a lot better.”
The students used supplies such as the mousetraps, CDs, dowels, pencils, balloons, tape and string. White said her contribution was the idea to put balloons over the compact discs to give the “wheels” a little more traction to help the car glide better. She said through trial and error they discovered better ways to design the car.
“We progressed,” White said. “I learned that teamwork and listening to other people’s ideas can actually create a better understanding and a better product.”
Other activities throughout the day included computer science where students learned how computers make the distinction between spam and non-spam messages, environmental science where students learned about the ecology of Lake Coeur d’Alene and observed plankton under microscopes, and a math project where students learned how identifying patterns provides the solution to many problems.
There were 150 sophomores from 10 North Idaho high schools attending the hands-on Women in Science and Engineering event sponsored by the University of Idaho.
“We’re really trying to motivate girls to continue on to a STEM career,” said Sharon Bosley, U of I STEM outreach assistant. “We try and give them a glimpse of what their career or research could be like.”
She said they shared with girls how science could be fun, immersive and hands-on. They also invited women with careers in science to join as role models for the girls.
“We’re just trying to inspire the young women in our community to consider going to school for science and engineering,” Bosley said. “Hopefully this motivates them and gets them interested.”
Students in the college ambassador team, Alyssa Hansten studying biological engineering and Madelynn Gregoire studying civil engineering, helped lead some of the engineering events.
Gregoire said they do a lot of events like the one on Wednesday, helping high schoolers pursue engineering careers as well as get interested in engineering.
“We’re really big supporters for women,” Gregoire said. “That’s one of our goals of the college engineering program, is helping underrepresented diversity groups get opportunities to explore STEM in a really safe and competitive space.”
Hansten said that in elementary school, kids are all super interested in science and engineering, but by the time they reach high school they’ve lost that spark.
She said it’s important to break that wall of, “It’s not cool to be a nerd,” and open back up that spark.
“Everyone likes to learn more about the natural world,” Hansten said. “Everyone’s a STEM enthusiast. We just forget that by the time we get to high school and we’re trying to decide what we want to do with our life.”
