Learning to love a challenge

Brown engineers share their excitement with Providence girls.

Too often, as girls hit middle and high school, their natural interest in science gets frustrated or sidetracked. The same girls that were fascinated by dinosaurs or constellations begin to wonder, "Why bother, what can I do with science?"

On November 4, students and faculty at Brown's Center for Advanced Materials Research (CAMR) and Division of Engineering gave one hundred girls and their parents a resounding answer to that unspoken question. Professor Gregory Crawford, Dean of Engineering, hosted a one-day conference titled "Empowering your Future" to engage middle-school girls in a range of hands-on science and engineering activities. Graduate and undergraduate engineering students led workshops showcasing real-life applications of scientific principles. The activities included building liquid crystal displays from scratch, learning structural engineering principles by building bridges out of gumdrops and toothpicks, and exploring the strange effects of super-cold liquid nitrogen. Other teams built catapults, learned the physics of skateboarding, and immersed themselves in alternate realities – including a simulation of bat flight, a walk on the surface of Mars, and a peek inside a human skull – at Brown's Center for Advanced Scientific Computation and Visualization.

The girls worked in teams to tackle an engineering problem or explore a scientific principle while their parents learned ways to encourage curiosity, foster strong study skills, and help their daughters complete college applications. "We're really excited about building bridges for these girls," said Crawford. "The goal is to show them how exciting it can be to really understand the science and engineering in our everyday lives and keep them hooked on science and math."

Several student groups helped conduct the workshops, including the Society of Women Engineers, The National Society of Black Engineers, Engineers Without Borders, and Society for Information Display; as well as Providence-area K-12 teachers from CAMR's Research Experience for Teachers Summer 2006 Program.

The day wrapped up with an egg drop contest in which eight of ten teams managed to land their eggs safely from a height of twenty feet. The girls put all their creativity to work, slowing an egg's falls with parachutes, cushioning the landing with styrofoam, suspending an egg inside a popsicle-stick landing craft, or even coating the whole egg with glue.

Organizers hope the annual event will help channel that kind of creativity into fields that can seem daunting for children of either gender. "I don't think [my daughter] realized how many aspects of everyday life revolve around math and science," said one parent. "I hope this opens up her mind to how many things she can do in life."