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March 15, 2010
Inspiring girls to pursue math and science careers
More than 300 teenage girls chose to spend their Saturday at school on March 12, and had a blast! The annual Expanding Your Horizons (EYH) conference, held at Northwest Middle School in Salt Lake City, featured 27 different hands-on workshops designed to spark the girls’ interest in math and science careers. The workshops spanned a variety of fun activities including learning how to program a robot, launch a rocket, make chocolate highways and even extract DNA.
Rocky Mountain Power provided a $650 sponsorship and Eve Davies, an environmental scientist with the company’s hydro department, volunteered her time to lead an EYH workshop for three groups of girls. Eve described her job and shared experiences she’s had while protecting wildlife around the company’s hydro projects and other properties.
Eve's team of volunteers included a U.S. Forest Service District Ranger, an ATK Aerospace Systems rocket scientist and an associate of a local architectural firm. Together they helped the students construct platforms to provide safe locations where osprey can build their nests away from power lines.
The girls completed a total of 7 osprey nesting platforms that will be placed throughout our service area. (Learn more about Rocky Mountain Power’s environmental commitment.) Afterward, the girls enjoyed decorating the platforms and signing their names on the wooden frames.
Expanding Your Horizons is a worldwide program developed in California in 1974. EYH Salt Lake City is sponsored and organized by ATK Aerospace Systems in partnership with the Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Development, Salt Lake City School District and the Utah Math/Science Network.
According to ATK, The main goal of EYH is to get young women excited about science, technology, engineering and math careers, where men still hold a majority. The girls, from grades six through twelve, came from more than 60 different schools from all over Utah. Each girl participated in the three workshops of her choice.
The classes were taught by women in math and science professions, giving the students a sense of what a career in these fields would be like and providing a role model. Eve said she really enjoyed the experience and hopes to be back next year to help inspire even more girls!
