This event is for girls in high school planned for the weekend of July 20-21st. The aim of this program is to:
1) show the girls the fields of study available within physics and
2) provide space for them to interact with women actively pursuing science as a career.
In order to participate in this exciting experience, please submit an application (link below) with a statement of why you would like to attend and how you think this experience would benefit you. Acceptances will be emailed at the end of July. Applications after this date will be reviewed but space is not guaranteed. Note that snacks and lunch will be provided both days. We’re so excited to see you there!
Apply here!
Schedule of Events
Saturday
9:00 AM: Introductions
9:30 AM: Engineering Challenge
11-12 PM: Demonstration Sections
12-1 PM: Lunch
1-3 PM: Demonstration Sections
3-4 PM: Discussion/snack with Undergraduate and PhD students
Sunday
9:00 AM: Engineering Challenge
10:30-11:30 AM: Presentation from a Scientist
11:30-12:30 PM: Lunch
12:30-2:30 PM: Demonstration Sections
2:30-3:30 PM: Lab Tours
3:30-4 PM: Recap/snacks
Apply here!
Planned Fields of Exploration
Chaos/Non-linear Dynamics: Chaos theory studies how random or unpredictable behaviour can actually arise from underlying patterns and deterministic laws in dynamic systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions. To learn about this field of physics, attendees will conduct a Belousov-Zhabotinsky chemical reaction which can oscillate back and forth and form dramatic patterns due to the reactions sensitivity to perturbations.
Optics: Optics is the study of the behavior of light, understanding which is important to fields that use lasers or imaging. For example, building a quantum computer, designing telescopes, or creating plasmas. To learn about one application of this field, attendees will build an interferometer. This device allows one to directly observe quantum mechanics and is used in huge experiments like LIGO.
Electronics: Designing circuits or building electronic systems is necessary for the entirety of the modern world to exist. To learn about this ever pervasive field, attendees will build and test an AC-DC converter circuit – a small scale version of what used to charge every battery powered device out there, including cars!
Rocketry: There’s whole wide universe around us and the way to get there is with rockets! Launching hundreds of tons of fuel, metal, and science off the earth is really difficult and expensive, so scientist do everything they can to optimize their designs for efficiency and safety. To get a taste of how this is done, attendees will build their own bottle rocket, choosing their own modifications to optimize flight!
Astronomy: We can’t get to most of the universe in rockets we have today, so the entire field of astronomy studies what’s out there with information we can obtain here on earth (or nearby). Most of that information is in the form of light! To study this aspect of physics, attendees will build, test, and learn about use cases for a spectrometer, a device which scientists use to split light into constituent wavelengths for measurement.