2008 Mini-Grant Awards

• Career Day for High School Girls
  Collaborating Organizations: Alliance for Girls and University of Louisville Speed School, Louisville, KY
  Grades Served: Grade 9-12
  Award: $300
  
  The Engineering Career Day for Girls is designed to introduce young women to various fields of engineering. The day-long program includes a panel of female engineering students, one of female engineers, and hands-on activities in engineering labs and classrooms.
• Fun with Color
  Collaborating Organizations: Floyd County Schools and Eastern Kentucky Science Center, Prestonsburg, KY
  Grades: 5-8
  Award: $943
  
  The East Kentucky Science Center will provide a hands-on inquiry-based learning program, with a special emphasis placed upon chemistry, biology and physics, for female students from surrounding counties. Projects included are chromatography, spectroscopy, polymerization, and other chemistry/physics topics. By using color as the foundation and the underlying theme for all activities, students will develop problem solving skills, use the scientific method process, and analyze the components as indicated by color. The projects are aligned with the Kentucky Core Content. In collaboration with Floyd County Schools, 40 females, 5th through 8th grade, will be recruited and selected based upon input from regional counselors, teachers, and family resource centers.
• Girls Enjoying Math and Science
  Collaborating Organizations: Girls Scouts, Bluegrass Society of Women Engineers and University of Kentucky, College of Engineering
  Grades: 4-8
  Award: $1,000
  
  GEMS is a special Girl Scout Council event that will be held October 25, 2008 at the University of Kentucky. Three hundred girls from grades 4 - 8 will attend. Girls will participate in three hands-on science workshops conducted by the University of Kentucky, the Bluegrass Society of Women Engineers, and Lexmark, as well as other consultants. Girls will discover that there are abundant science-based career opportunities for women.
• Oceanography--Exploring the Depths--Girls too!
  Collaborating Organizations: Danville Schools and Centre College Biology Dept.
  Grades: 3-5
  Award: $1,000
  
  Danville Schools 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students will have the opportunity to attend Danville Kids University (DKU), a Saturday morning enrichment program that allows students to extend learning in the arts, math, science and technology. This year's theme is oceanography. Careers for students, highlighting female job opportunities, will be explored each Saturday morning. The final session will be hosted by Centre College's Biology Department on November 22. Centre professors and students will teach DKU students about the plants and animals of the ocean. Topics will include the coral reef, the ocean floor, and the variety of life found in the world's seven oceans. Careers will be highlighted for both boys and girls with an effort to include careers of successful females in oceanography.
• Parent-Daughter STEM Institute
  . Collaborating Organizations: Boone County Schools, Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence and Northern Kentucky University
  Grades: 6-11
  Award: $800
  
  Parents' engagement with their children plays a significant role in career choice. Using the CIPL framework for parent engagement, parents are most likely to become involved if they understand they should be involved and if they know they are capable of making a contribution. This evening with parents and daughters is intended to create those opportunities for parent/daughter involvement while exploring multiple career options and levels of educational attainment needed for careers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) with their daughters. The targeted population will be girls in grades 6 through 11. The evening institute will last 2 hours with a limit of 50 families involved at each scheduled presentation. Light dinner will be served to meet the needs of working parents.
• Turning the Page to a New Era!
  Collaborating Organizations: Pulaski County Schools, University of Kentucky, College of Engineering, Student Technical Leadership Program (STLP) and Eastern Kentucky University
  Grades: 4-9
  Award: $1,000
  
  Turning the PAGE to a New Era! Pulaski Advancing Girls in Engineering! The PAGE Symposium will introduce girls to fundamental engineering concepts, critical thinking, and female role models who will guide them in a day of STEM hands-on activities. This symposium will be the first-ever in the South East South Central Kentucky region and will strive to build relationships and provide additional opportunities for all girls grades 4-9 to experience engineering concepts and hands-on, inquiry-based STEM programs.
• Introduction to Chemistry and Physics
  Collaborating Organizations: Henderson County Schools, University of Louisville, Dept. of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
  Grades: 8-12
  Award: $1,000
  
  In a 9th grade Introduction to Chemistry and Physics class the students will study the Kentucky Core Content for Chemistry. They will also participate in chemistry lab experiments. They will learn about discoveries of female scientists in the past and research current female scientists. They will gather statistics on how many girls major in chemistry and other science fields. A local female guest speaker who is a scientist will visit and eat lunch with the students in the classroom and describe what she does in her job. As part of reviewing for the midterm exam the students will summarize all the different chemistry concepts and skills they have learned. After their midterm exam the students will take a field trip to visit some of the researchers in the University of Louisville Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology to learn what they do. That afternoon they will also visit the Louisville Science Center Museum.
• Rockin Girl RoboPower
  Collaborating Organizations: Grant County Schools, Student Technical Leadership Program
  Grades: 6-8
  Award: $1,000
  
  The Rockin Girl RoboPower project brings together an engineering team of middle school girls to design, build and program a robot to compete in a statewide challenge. The girls will also meet with women professionals in STEM careers to discuss the opportunities available. Robotics activities incorporate many STEM related tasks. The program design will have the female students engaged in hands-on learning while introducing the STEM connections. The project group will be 15-20 female middle school students. Activities used to demonstrate the Assessment and Evaluation research based strategy will include pre and post assessment (survey / questionnaire) designed using a NGCP Web resource. We will also document the experience through video and photographs.