Participants will make a wearable patch using a template to familiarize themselves with sewable & expressive electronics, transference of circuitry knowledge, and tying expressive electronic to self-perception and how society views them in a reflective debrief.

Ask participants to write down their morning routine. Share a sample routine (yours or the one below):

1. Wake up
2. Use the bathroom
3. Eat breakfast
4. Brush teeth
5. Shower
6. Style hair
7. Get dressed
8. Put on accessories
9. Put on shoes
10. Pack book-bag, backpack, purse, etc.
11. Leave for school

Instruct participants to rank all steps of their routines, on a scale of one to ten, how much other people’s opinions matter when they make choices such as those about what to wear and how to style themselves in the morning.

Explain the scale:

• 1 = choice based solely on personal desires and wishes
• 10 = choice based entirely on what other people think

Discussion:

• Which choices do you make in your morning routine that might affect people’s opinions of you? What assumptions might someone make about your identity based on these choices?
• What might happen if you made different choices one morning? How could making a different choice in your hairstyle, fashion, or another aspect of your routine affect how people look at you?

Further analyze the connection between appearances and assumptions by having the participants discuss Bayeté Ross Smith’s Our Kind of People photography exhibit.

• Scroll through each set of photographs and ask the participants to discuss how people’s perceptions might change along with what the person is wearing. Have them think about WHY people’s perceptions change.
• Discuss how cultural bias - the tendency to judge others through a narrow view based on our own culture - impacts how to judge others and how we ourselves are judged.

Background information on the exhibit: The “Our Kind Of People” series examines how clothing, ethnicity and gender affect our ideas about identity, personality and character. The subjects in this work are dressed in clothing from their own wardrobes. The outfits are worn in a style and fashion similar to how that person would wear them in daily life. I have kept the lighting and facial expressions the same in each photograph, changing only the clothing and race. Devoid of any context for assessing the personality of the individual in the photograph, the viewer projects her or his own cultural biases on each photograph. These images may be presented in a series, grouped together by the subject, or mixed together, with images of the various subjects next to each other.

Prompts:

• Think about a time in which you were judged for what you were wearing. If you are willing to share with the group, please share your experience.
• Has your family or friends ever been judged for what they wore or their appearance in general?

The Challenge: How can we light up 3 LEDs with only one 3V coin battery?

(This challenge is designed as a refresher for girls to apply parallel circuit)

1. Brief the participants on the challenge and ask them to work in pairs using 3 LEDs, one 3V battery and alligator leads.
2. Ask girls from 1 group to share their process of thinking and testing.

• We discussed how others make judgements about us based on how we look, dress, talk, etc. Do you think you have control over their judgements?
• Has anyone ever judged you in a way that you know does not match who you really are?
• Throughout the program, you have learned how to make circuits and how to use scientific tools. Do you think others would look at you and identify you as a scientist? Why or why not?
• Do you feel like a scientist?