Scientific dreams are for following

More than 600 seventh- to tenth-grade girls were advised to realize their dreams in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) during the 16th annual Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory’s Young Women’s Conference. “You guys are very capable of so many ideas and I’m depending on you,” NASA aerospace engineer Aprille Ericsson told the audience in Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium. “Don’t be scared to keep pushing forward until you achieve your dream,” the keynote speaker said.

Erickson’s talk highlighted the serious purpose of the conference: inspiring young women to enter STEM fields. The number of women in such fields has doubled in the past two decades, but while half of all college-educated employees are women, they still make up just 29 percent, or less than one-third, of the STEM workforce in the United States, according to the National Science Foundation.

Students at the conference explored a variety of STEM fields. They spent the day doing hands-on science activities at more than 30 exhibits at Princeton’s Frick Chemistry Laboratory, listened to talks by female engineers, and watched colorful chemistry experiments before coming together for Ericsson’s address. They tested substances on a soiled car seat to determine if the substance was (simulated) blood. They tried out 3-D goggles and built models of the DNA of a virus.

“They explored a lot of new science topics,” said organizer Deedee Ortiz, the program administrator in PPPL’s Science Education Department. “This is an opportunity that the majority of these girls would never have otherwise.”

PPPL had several displays in which students learned about plasmas, watched a 3-D printer at work, learned about how a computer is built, and got to try on firefighting equipment. Kathryn Wagner, of Princeton University, showed students chemistry experiments in which she made substances go “boom” and turn bright colors.

“It’s all cool science,” said Annie Dykstra, an eighth-grader from John Witherspoon Middle School in Princeton. Her teacher, Janet Gaudino, was equally enthusiastic. I love it and I know the girls love it,” she said. “There are so many activities and all it takes is one booth for a girl to say, ‘I want to do that.’ You can’t manufacture that level of engagement in a class.”

The gathering followed the 2016 conference, at which some 575 students met with investigators from the FBI, watched colorful infrared images of themselves, played with robots, learned about electronics and plasma physics, saw cool chemistry, and heard about careers in STEM.

Those students heard keynote speaker Jin Kim Montclare, a researcher and professor in the New York University Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, describe how her early interest in nature as a child became a successful career in a cutting-edge research field. She was helped and encouraged by several mentors along the way, but also had to ignore people who told her she wasn’t good enough.

“There are always going to be people who say you can’t do it,” she said. “What you can do is have selective hearing in that ear. Tune down the people who tell you that you can’t do it and tune up the people who are supportive. Use your hard work, roll up your sleeves, and make it happen.”