On October 15th 2016, iCAN traveled to Worcester to volunteer with the Girl Scouts of Central and Western Massachusetts in the annual Geek is Glam Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) event.
Geek is Glam is a one day event that introduces girls in grades 4-8 to talented men and women working in exciting areas of science! Through interactive workshops, hands-on exhibits, and educational career panels the event hopes to inspire the next generation of female scientists.
iCAN members presented the workshop: Making Cents out of Global Warming: Save Our Ship! Our workshop was designed to tie in the overarching concept of global warming with a hands- on workshop to apply the principles of buoyancy. In addition to our discussion of global warming, Sean McGrath, UMass-Physics ’16, gave an interactive presentation on the concept of buoyancy and the Archimedes Principle.
The students were then challenged to be engineers and apply their new knowledge! In teams of four the students were tasked with designing and building an aluminum foil boat that could hold the most pennies.
In addition to the workshop, the iCAN team also spoke to groups in an educational career panel. Our alumni team was able to share each of their diverse jobs, career paths, and experiences from a wide breadth of roles: Software Engineer at KAYAK, Lab Coordinator at UMass Amherst Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Actuarial Analyst at Mercer, Research Assistant at Boston Children’s Hospital, and Technical Research Assistant at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.