{"id":1397,"date":"2017-03-13T08:51:41","date_gmt":"2017-03-13T12:51:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/fuelforthought\/?p=1397"},"modified":"2017-03-13T08:55:32","modified_gmt":"2017-03-13T12:55:32","slug":"girls-experiment-with-algae-in-annual-stem-outreach-event","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/fuelforthought\/girls-experiment-with-algae-in-annual-stem-outreach-event\/","title":{"rendered":"Girls experiment with algae in annual STEM outreach event"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Pivers Island gate beep-beep-beep<\/em>-ed as it lifted to let my car\u00a0through at 5:20 a.m. on a dark Saturday morning. I delicately packed our\u00a0algae-filled bottles from lab and stored them in\u00a0my car along with other lab supplies. Setting\u00a0out on Highway 70, I picked up my lab mate Courtney Swink and we settled in for a 3-hour sunrise ride\u00a0to Durham, sustained by\u00a0black tea and coffee.<\/p>\n

By 9 a.m., we\u00a0lugged our turbidimeter, boxes of algae and display\u00a0board into the Biological Sciences building on Duke’s campus.\u00a0We had about an hour to set up before our first group of students would arrive\u00a0for the FEMMES capstone event.\u00a0FEMMES<\/a> (Females Excelling More in Math, Engineering, and Science) is a Duke undergraduate-led organization that provides local female fourth-sixth graders with STEM opportunities and role models. These offerings include an impressive array of\u00a0after-school programs, Saturday programs, summer camps and the annual capstone event. This year, FEMMES\u00a0also kickstarted a mentorship program to continue connections with seventh graders and beyond. According to their site, their goal is to “allow girls to … explore their potential in STEM fields,” instill confidence in science and math skills and “empower them to pursue their dreams.” All volunteers are women\u00a0with passions for STEM, showing girls that “women can and do excel in these fields.”<\/p>\n

The annual capstone event invites local girls to campus to get their hands dirty (figuratively and literally) with\u00a0science and engineering-related activities, which are designed and led by female faculty, graduate students and undergraduates. To set the tone and ignite some STEM enthusiasm, the day kicks off with a keynote speaker. Girls informed Courtney and I that\u00a0this year’s speaker talked\u00a0about Gaga ferns (check it out<\/a>: a\u00a0genus of ferns founded by Duke researchers and named after Lady Gaga). Girls then travel in groups to four\u00a0different activities throughout the day, meaning that we led our activity four times, reaching\u00a0a total of\u00a030 girls.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Our classroom in the BioSci building.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This was my fourth capstone event, and each year the activity is tweaked as I learn\u00a0what works well and what doesn’t<\/a>.\u00a0Courtney and I started each session\u00a0by introducing ourselves and explaining what we do as graduate students (because I certainly had no idea what “graduate student” meant when I was a fourth-grader). We asked\u00a0the girls what they knew about algae and passed around some algae cultures\u00a0to show the diversity of colors and appearances. Next, we led\u00a0the venn diagram activity I used last year<\/a>, in which girls\u00a0compare algae and\u00a0human growth requirements.<\/p>\n

After learning that algae need sunlight, water, nutrients and carbon dioxide,\u00a0the girls were tasked with brainstorming\u00a0how to find\u00a0the optimal growth conditions for algae. They had some sharp\u00a0ideas to test different temperatures, amount of air provided, different water sources and (with some hints from us) different light levels. When asked how they would test different light levels, the girls\u00a0had no trouble coming up with four different scenarios: LOTS of light, no light, dim\u00a0light, and ‘normal’ light (or, as we explained, the control).<\/p>\n

Each pair of students chose one treatment to set up. To make growth medium, they weighed out nitrogen and phosphorus nutrients (really just salt and sugar) on a kitchen scale using the same weigh boats and scoopulas we use in lab. Then they inoculated their cultures using a plastic dropper.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Girls weighed\u00a0the\u00a0“nutrients” to add to\u00a0their algae growth medium.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Girls effectively\u00a0self-regulated\u00a0when setting up their algae cultures so that all group members could\u00a0try out the different lab supplies.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We placed all the bottles on a\u00a0sunny windowsill: one with a desk lamp shining on it, one under a black bag, one beneath a tinted screen and one with no additional treatment.\u00a0On the whiteboard, we drew a graph for\u00a0girls to mark their predictions of the algae growth results.<\/p>\n

Although some girls\u00a0hoped the algae would grow in 5 minutes, we explained that it would really take a few days, so we brought the “results” that we’d already grown in\u00a0our\u00a0lab. Girls used a turbidimeter to measure the turbidity, or cloudiness, of each algae culture \u2013 a quick way to compare\u00a0the amount of algae\u00a0in each bottle.
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Participant fills a vial to measure the turbidity of her algae culture.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

They drew bars on the whiteboard graph to visualize the results, which matched most of their predictions, with the “extra light” treatment having the highest algae concentration by far. But we further explained that too much\u00a0light could cause photoinhibition, which would\u00a0negatively affect algae growth. Even before we mentioned\u00a0this, some girls used their gardening knowledge to predict that too much light wouldn’t be good for the algae.<\/p>\n

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Participant marks her algae growth results on a graph.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I would call the activity a success\u00a0because I witnessed most of the girls eagerly\u00a0design\u00a0an experiment, set it up and\u00a0make\u00a0hypotheses. Though we gave them hints and guided their thinking when necessary,\u00a0they took the reigns and let their curiosity drive\u00a0their learning process.<\/p>\n

I think I can speak for both Courtney and I when I say we\u00a0were completely exhausted after leading four activities. My vocal chords and feet pleaded\u00a0for a break. But it was well worth the early wake-up and exhaustion because I believe that we made a difference for, at the very least, one of the thirty girls that attended our activity.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Each year, I look forward to viewing our “Thank You” poster souvenir, signed by each participant.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I highly recommend volunteering at the FEMMES capstone event and give it the highest praise. The student planning\u00a0team is professional, friendly and organized, while dealing with hundreds of participants and volunteers. FEMMES also\u00a0measures the event outcomes via student surveys. Undergraduates\u00a0even published a peer-reviewed\u00a0journal article<\/a> in 2011 which showed “a significant increase in interest in engineering, and confidence and knowledge of math, science, and engineering three months after the one-day event.” At the Marine Lab, we have also modeled this capstone event by\u00a0creating Girls Exploring Science and Technology (GEST)<\/a>, an event\u00a0for sixth-eighth graders in eastern North Carolina.<\/p>\n

It is imperative to show younger generations of women that they can be the scientists, inventors and engineers of the future. We must\u00a0ensure they know, in the words of Hillary Clinton, that they are “valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world to pursue and achieve [their]\u00a0own dreams.” Forward progress in science, medicine, engineering and the like requires diverse ideas, skills and perspectives, which can only be realized when the make-up of these fields reflects the diversity in our population.\u00a0All scientists and engineers\u00a0have a responsibility to help develop an inclusive community, to be aware of the current barriers to progress and, ultimately, to help knock down those barriers.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Each year I lead an activity at the FEMMES (Females Excelling More in Math, Engineering, & Science) Capstone event on Duke’s campus. It is imperative to show younger generations of women that they can be the scientists, inventors and engineers of the future. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":401,"featured_media":1411,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6,7,12,24,28,19,20],"tags":[],"coauthors":[27],"class_list":["post-1397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marine-lab","category-energy","category-events","category-leadership","category-phd","category-student-life","category-students"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3UkTo-mx","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/fuelforthought\/files\/2017\/03\/IMG_5892.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/fuelforthought\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/fuelforthought\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/fuelforthought\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/fuelforthought\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/401"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/fuelforthought\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1397"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/fuelforthought\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1397\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1434,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/fuelforthought\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1397\/revisions\/1434"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/fuelforthought\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/fuelforthought\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/fuelforthought\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/fuelforthought\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1397"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nicholas.duke.edu\/fuelforthought\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}