Girl Scout Engineering Day at Colorado School of Mines

On Saturday I had the honor of supporting Jordan’s troop at the Society of Women Engineer’s Girl Scout day at the Colorado School of Mines.  I learned so much in an environment that was organized, stimulating and overwhelmingly FUN!  The college is located in Golden, Colorado which very well might be the most beautiful place on earth.  The entire event was created by the students at the college and they were magnificent.   We arrived at 8:45 to sign in.

Once everyone was signed in, we enjoyed the “Welcome” words and introductions of the student officers.

And then we jumped right into the first whole group activity, Asphalt Cookies.  The girls each brought a canned good and used it to roll out a melted chocolate piece of road using oatmeal as a binder.  When the workshop ended, they got to take their cookie home.  For the full recipe to do this at home, click here!

There were nine different activities around the large conference/banquet room in the student hall.  Jordan’s troop started at “Test Your Dominant Side” and learned about the history of of left and right sidedness in ways that it correlates with how things are made.

From there we went on to “Marshmallow Bridges” and took the challenge of building a bridge using toothpicks and marshmallows to learn how important bridges are for transportation and preserving our environment.  For more information about building bridges, you can visit PBS Online’s, Build Big.

The next stop was “Fake Snot” (aka Oogie Boogies) and the girls laughed and had fun learning about how sugars and proteins make protein strands.  There were a lot of EEEWWWWs and Grosses at this one. 

At the Product Design station, the girls learned about dreaming up then implementing new ideas and sharing their inventions.  The president of the Society of Women Engineers helped us here and she was great with the girls in building their confidence and empowering them to stretch their ideas.

Next we played with eggs at “Spinning and Floating Eggs” as we tested different eggs spinning, floating and sinking to discover how energy gets stored in things.

Only one egg hit the floor.  It was great for the Girl Scouts to see that even beautiful and brilliant engineering students make mistakes and can gracefully clean them up.

Our next stop was “IEEE Fun” where the girls played with batteries, wires and magnets to learn about energy.  Jordan and I loved this one because her dad graduated with his degree in Electrical Engineering and we were able to make that connection about problem solving running in the family.

At the “Water Cleanup” activity table, we learned about different ways to filter water and how clean-ups happen when there are spills.

Then we wandered down the hall to a room further back in the center to find the “Walk on Water” station where the girls mixed cornstarch and water to learn about Newtonian fluids.

And saving the brightest for last, we stayed in that room for “Glow Stick Fun” and learned about chemical reactions and bioluminescence.  We learned about energy as a light as well as a heat.

Wowza, so much in one morning!  We needed to rest for a quick moment before heading out into Golden with our family to explore the beautiful town.

I love Girl Scouts and Jordan and My Family and Colorado and Learning and Exploring and Making New Friends!  Saturday was a GREAT day.

If you want to practice working with some of these big ideas and words, I created a word search that you might like to do.  Feel free to download and share.

Happy Exploring and Learning.  Remember, GIRLS CAN DO ANYTHING!

Cheers,

Laura

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