SciGirls Extraordinaire | Jacquelyn Gill

Jacquelyn Gill, a Ph.D. candidate in Geography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has analyzed lake deposits in Wisconsin and New York to come up with some new data and thinking on large-animal extinction in North America.

Her research is pretty complex, but a recent New York Times article gives a great synopsis.

Kudos to Gill and her research mates at UW Madison. We expect a long and distinguished career from this SciGirl!

Smart Pet Investigations

OK, this is a silly post, but it's Friday, so here goes!

Years ago DragonflyTV shot a segment in which 3 girls tried to determine if their cats were left of right-pawed. (It's still a pretty cute episode: Pick a Paw by Cleo, Brittany, and Molly)

Meanwhile, SciGirls thinks they might have been asking the wrong research question. Perhaps a better inquiry might be: "Is your cat an ambidextrous piano player?"

Zombie Cockroaches!

Happy Halloween from
Radiolab!

Gever Tulley's Bay Area Tinkering School

The Tinkering School, a sleepover summer camp, offers an exploratory curriculum designed to help kids – ages 8 to 17 – learn how to build things.

Summer Stock | SciGirls in Albuquerque

Itzel, Karina, Kayla, Esmeralda, Karla, Gabriela, Paulina, Diana, Daisy, Jasmine, Jesenia and Alondra are part of Niñas explorando la ciencia, Explora's latest after school science club exclusively for Latina girls. Every week they get to design experiments and explore a variety of topics... from microgravity to forensics to sound and robotics!

These SciGirls also get to meet Latina scientist mentors. Their first guest speaker, Eliana, is a Seismic Scientist originally from Columbia working at New Mexico Tech. She was so enthusiastic about her visit to the SciGirls club, she even designed a book to share with the Niñas!

SciGirl Extraordinaire | Alexis McAdams

This summer, Alexis McAdams entered the Digital Open contest (DigitalOpen.org), which encouraged youth ages 17 and younger to submit projects demonstrating the transformative power of open technology. All projects submitted--including text, photos, and videos--were created from free and open software licenses.

Alexis' project was the "Dioractive," which raises awareness of global issues through the creation of physical dioramas that can be shared, reproduced, and remixed. Alexis said: "I was inspired to create this because I want people to reach out into their community and make a difference! If someone can pass by my diorama and continue to think about that issue for the rest of their day and decide to take action, then my job is done."

Watch Alexis explain the "Dioractive" on youtube!

Summer Stock | SciGirls in Chicago

The Museum of Science and Industry, in collaboration with the SciGirls en Español program, launched an outreach initiative called “Brilla La Ciencia” this summer. A group of Latina teenagers from the Museum’s Science Minors teen volunteer program led science workshops for youth participants at five community organizations.

The teenage SciGirls (Antonia, Amelia, Beth, Noemi, and Tere), accompanied and supervised by a college intern, traveled all around the city of Chicago visiting organizations and schools in predominantly Hispanic neighborhoods. The students were excited to learn that the teenagers came from similar communities and that they spoke Spanish. They were not afraid to ask lots of questions about high school, working at the museum, and life as a teenager. As for the SciGirls, they really enjoyed being role models and teachers!