We are a dynamic group of girls on a year long journey to learn about technology, physics, engineering, biology, robotics, and environmental sciences!
Check in often to see what we're up to!
It's the time of year, where we take a break from science and have a little holiday celebration!
This year, we went to Steppingstone Theater to see The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. It was pretty cute.
Afterwards, the girls gathered together with an artist to learn about stage makeup. Keeping in tune with the season, the girls were given the challenge to give themselves a case of frostbite! The had a demonstration, and then applied the makeup themselves.
Didn't they do a great job?!
When they were finished, they had a little gift exchange before leaving for the day.
It was so much fun!
Next month we'll be back into our regular routine, and will learn a bit about crime scene investigation!
As always, we started out the day watching an episode of SciGirls. This one was about garbage, and reusing to reduce the amount of trash going into the landfills.
The SciGirls used the first half of class to test the difference between compact fluorescent light bulbs and incandescent bulbs. The challenge: Are incandescent or compact fluorescent light bulbs more energy efficient? The broke into their groups, and got to work on their challenges. They each received cooking oil, a dropper, paper, a ruler, thermometer, stopwatch, and a calculator. Each station was set up with a lamp containing either a CFL or incandescent bulb.
After they were done experimenting and retesting, they presented their findings.
Here comes the M part of STEM:
They received a word problem that really helped demonstrate the results of their experiments.
When your neighbors go on vacation, they set a timer to turn on a lamp at 9 PM each night and turnit off at 6 AM each morning. How much energy would this light use in two weeks if it used an incandescent bulb? If it used a CFL bulb?
wattage of bulb = energy used
hours of use X 1000 (kilowatt-hours (kWh)
Our CFL bulb had 15W and the incandescent had 60W.
See if your girls can remember how to do this! The results are pretty eye opening!
And the A in STEAM:
For part two of class, we had an artist from Art Scraps drop by with a LOT of reused art supplies. The SciGirls spent an hour and a half creating, designing, and building. So much fun! It was so fun to see the girls personalities come out through their creations!
It was a great class! Next month is our annual Christmas/holiday celebration! Stay tuned to see what we were up to! Hint: Makeup!!!
Body Language...Coding...Robotics...Sumo Wrestling...So Much Fun!!
I. am. a. robot.
This month at SciGirls, we watched the episode "Robots to the Rescue."
Afterwards the girls were introduced to their experiment for the day. The challenge was to cover their faces, and try to convey different emotions using body language, just as robots do (without facial expressions). The SciGirls got into groups, brainstormed different emotions, and then took turns trying to stump their team members while acting out the emotions. They found that expressing happiness, joy, and annoyance were pretty easy, while expressing other emotions such as embarrassed were difficult.
Lunch time!
After lunch, Engineering 4 Kids came and gave each pair their own lap top and Lego robot. The wonderful teachers taught the girls how to code the robots, and then gave them the challenge to create a sumo-bot, and knock their competitor out of the ring. It was so much fun! The girls competed in a friendly competition, sometimes redesigning their robots to improve their performance, and coming back to compete again. I'm pretty sure almost all the girls wanted to take their cool robots home!
It was a blast. I loved this class because I felt that my own SciGirl was exposed to something that she wouldn't have otherwise been exposed to. Now she knows that she has an interest in robotics and coding, that didn't interest her before. How cool!!
Next month we'll meet up again and learn about how the make eco-conscious decisions in our day to day lives.
Our first SciGirls class for the 2015-16 school year is in the books, and I'd call it a BIG success. The girls had a great time, learned a lot, did a lot of collaborative thinking, and made new friends!
Since it was our first class of the year, we did things a little bit differently than normal. We started out with a little get-to-know-you activity. Fortunately, the weather was gorgeous, and we were able to do that outside!
After that, we watched the SciGirls episode: Butterfly Diaries.
Once the video was over, we got into our fun experiment! The girls were given the challenge to build a butterfly glider. They were given three pieces of card stock. Two had preprinted gliders (from here) printed on them, and one was blank. The girls had the option to either build the glider according to directions, or to create their own design. They had tape, scissors, glue, pennies, and paperclips. A few of them asked if they could find items in nature to use in their designs, which added a cool dimension to some of their creations! It was really interesting to see the gliders. No two were alike. They measured their flights, several of the groups redesigned and tested again. There was a lot of collaborating happening. It was fantastic!! At the end of the project, the groups presented their findings.
Then, lunchtime happened:
For the second half of class, we had a guest speaker come in from The Monarch Project. She gave a really great talk about the amazing life cycle of the monarch as it related to their journey to and from Mexico each year. It's really miraculous! She brought in monarch eggs, caterpillars, chrysalis, and live monarchs. In the end, the girls got to name, tag, and send off nine monarchs. The monarchs they released are now somewhere between here and Mexico :)
Next month, the girls will delve into the world of robotics. It's going to be FUN!
