Tuesday, May 13, 2014

STEM SAVVY: WCCCD attracts middle schoolers from across Downriver to event


Staff Writer Dave Komer of The News-Herald Newspapers recently covered more than 100 seventh and eighth-grade girls from 14 school districts – including Taylor – as they descended on Wayne County Community College’s Downriver Campus recently for a day of workshops and empowerment.

“STEM Savvy” provided a day of Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics interactive workshops, the event featured professional women in scientific career fields, set up by the American Association of University Women Wyandotte-Downriver May 7.

In one workshop students made models of early hominid brains, while in another they learned to build their own windmills.

Deb Kennedy, president of AAUW Wyandotte-Downriver, said that STEM day is a pilot program that best compares to a one-day science camp.



“The number of women in the STEM fields is very few,” Kennedy said. “It’s been discovered through research that AAUW and college studies that the career (path) decision is made in the middle school years whether to go into the sciences or not - generally to not go into them. This is why we are targeting this age group.”



Casey Papp, 14 and Clarissa Hoye, 13, of Woodhaven both enjoyed their day, picking different sessions as their favorites.



“I liked the technology because I am very into photography and I liked learning about the colors and the animation,” Papp said.



“I liked the chemistry because I liked the hands-on experiments,” Hoye said. “I think this was nice because then you have an idea of what you want to do when you get older and what jobs you might like.”

For the complete NH presentation including video, click here.

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