We had three amazing college students work with us to deliver the Girls in Science Camp at Green Street and serve as role models for the campers. This year, those young women were Josephine Ho, Mackenzie Schlosser, and Victoria Barr. In this six-part series, they share their experiences and favorite moments of the week.
Girls in Science Camp Reflection – “Helping Each Other Learn”
by Josephine Ho
The campers from this year consisted of girls from different grades (4, 5, and 6). Naturally, some of them were more advanced than others. This gap created an opportunity for older girls to help younger ones learn.
As a teaching assistant, I was delighted to have a glimpse into the thought process of the campers as they explained difficult concepts to each other. It was a wonderful experience both for me and the campers who were on the receiving end of the teaching. More importantly, it was a great way to know if the campers have grasped the topic at hand.
An activity that deliberately encouraged teaching and learning among campers was the Taboo-like review game that we played on the last day. The campers were split into two teams. Each team sent one representative who had to guess a word from the vocabulary that we learned throughout the week. The rest of the team members were in charge of helping their reps guess the word by explaining the word with scientific facts; no clues on the component of the word was allowed.
Although we did not manage to go through a lot of words, the session was an eye-opener for me. I saw how certain concepts could be explained simply with a 6th grade vocabulary.
Over the course of the camp, I got to witness this sort of a moment again and again as girls realized that they could put their own ideas into the work we were doing. They went from exclaiming how flies looked gross under a microscope to asking me if they could dissect them. One girl discovered the trick to breaking the surface tension in soap bubbles and proceeded to fill the room with bubbles with machine-like efficiency. The things we figure out for ourselves are what we are most proud of and most likely to remember.
I really didn’t know much about Girls in Science Camp except that it was for 4th to 6th grade girls and its goal was to encourage girls to be interested in STEM fields. I didn’t know the extent of how much these girls would be learning about biology, chemistry, and physics and I especially did not expect the girls to actually grasp and enjoy the advanced concepts they were being taught. They learned about DNA, mutations, cell structure, light/waves, etc. – material I myself did not learn about until high school.
I imagined that the girls would be young and anxious to learn about science. I imagined that they would draw male scientists when we asked them to do the “Draw a Scientist” assignment the first day. I imagined that they would forget to write in their journals and I and the other helpers would have to remind them to do so. I imagined my experience would be similar to dealing with myself when I was that age. I pictured shy, energetic, bright and inexperienced little girls.
They are such bright children and their notes were wonderful. There was one girl that wrote notes that were so thorough I felt like she was already ready for college! I was very impressed with the students that participated in this camp. I believe that this is a sign that we are well on our way to a world where girls are just as prevalent as guys in the scientific fields.
by Anna Redgrave
When I heard about the Girls in Science Camp I was thrilled because to me it represented a space outside of the often overwhelming school-in-session environment where girls could really delve into issues and ask their own questions. That kind of opportunity is something I could really have used as a kid, and I was excited to have a chance to help other girls develop an appreciation for science.
