Workshops Offered During 2017 Girls STEM Summer Camp
- In summer of 2017, this camp ran from July 24th to July 28th from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
- Daily workshop sessions were from 9:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and 1:30 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
- Each workshop session was attended by 8-10 girls with 1-2 Girls, Inc. Coordinators.
- Workshop locations included the Innovation Studio, labs, and classrooms, or in the field.
Some of the workshops offered in 2017 included:
Tragedy of the Commons/Predator vs Prey
Instructor: Cassidy Bornemann (Civil Engineering Undergrad Student)
Tragedy of the Commons: The kids will obtain a certain amount of fish. They have to catch fish by sucking on an m&m with a straw and removing it from a bin. They need two fish to survive to go to the next round. For every two fish left in the pond, another fish is added. They have to record how many fish they caught. After a few rounds, the person with the largest amount of fish caught is the winner.
Predator vs Prey: The kids will have a population of paper mice which they will drop from a constant distance onto four squares of paper representing a field. The mice that fall within the borders of the field stay alive. Then the students will drop paper coyotes onto the field from the same height. The mice the coyote lands on is eaten and if it lands on more than one mouse, it's allowed to reproduce, increasing the coyote population. The "eaten" mice are then taken out of the square. If the coyote doesn't land on a mouse, it starves and is removed from the coyote population. The remaining population of mice will then reproduce. This is repeated for multiple generations.
3D Printing for Everyone
Instructor: Brandon Terranova (Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics)
In this workshop, you will have the chance to design and 3D print, a keepsake. There will be a brief overview of 3D printing followed by an activity where we will go through a series of exercises, culminating in an object that each attendee will have designed themselves.
Low Cost Water Filtration
Instructor: Dr. Mira Olson (Environmental Engineering)
Students will build water filters out of low-cost materials to clean a muddy water sample.
Carbon Dioxide: Where is it?
Instructor: Dr. Ezra Wood (Chemistry)
We will investigate phase transitions using dry ice, and will measure CO2 in real time around the room to learn about where CO2 comes from.
Girl Makers
Instructor: Dr. Lunal Khuon (Engineering Technology)
Students will be working on activities to include 3D printing, robotics, and coding.
Designing with the Sun
Instructor: Dr. Simi Hoque (Architectural Engineering)
In this workshop, students will build a small building out of card board and foam board to explore how orientation, window placement, and openings change how much light and heat penetrate the building. They will then create the same building as a sketch up model to learn how buildings are designed with the sun.
Game Theory
Instructor: Dr. Patrick Gurian (Environmental Engineering)
Participants will participate in a multi-person prisoner’s dilemma and possibly other games.
Research Sprint for Self-Healing Infrastructure
Instructor: Drs. Yaghoob Farnam and Chris Sales (Civil and Environmental Engineering)
The research sprint for self-healing infrastructure, as the name suggests, will be a fast-paced, intense, and collaborative workshop in which STEM girls research, design and make self-healing infrastructure materials during a two day period. They will in engage science and technology form biology, environmental engineering, materials engineering, and civil engineering to design a self-healing concrete for infrastructure.
Fractal Your Own Well
Instructor: Dr. Shannon Capps (Civil Engineering)
The students will first learn the basics of hydraulic fracturing. Then, they will have the opportunity in small groups to attempt to drill a well bore in jello in a bottle and push fracking fluid (plaster of Paris) through the well casing (straw). See https://www.airwatergas.org/resources/curriculum/make-a-fracking-model-activity/ for more details.
From Making Ramen to Re-growing a Leg: Art of Tissue Engineering
Instructor: Dr. Leo Han (Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics)
This workshop will provide students a glance into the cutting edge technologies for regenerative medicine, where doctors, scientists and engineers work hand-in-hand to approach one thing that has long been considered impossible, re-growing lost body parts, from head to toe. This short lesson aims to inspire and encourage pre-college students to make a career goal in the field of S.T.E.M, specifically in bioengineering.
The Science and Engineering of Stuff: Unusual Material Behavior
Instructor: Henrietta Tsosie (Materials Science and Engineering Ph.D. Student)
Almost everything around you - the clothes you wear, the dishes you eat from, the computer you use, the bike you ride, or the car you drive in - is made of stuff. Materials Science and Engineering is the study of that stuff: what it's made of, how it works and what we can do with it. Join us as we explore the wonders of materials and their uses in our everyday lives!
Water Treatment and Quality
Instructor: Dr. Patricia Gallagher (Civil Engineering)
In this workshop, Dr. Gallagher will explain the hydrologic cycle, use an aquifer model to show how water travels underground, and have students make individual filters that turn dirty water into clean water.
Building with Pasta
Instructor: Dr. Nariman Mostafavi and Hamed Yassaghi (Architectural Engineering)
Students will build bridges out of spaghetti and test their strength.