Colorado Girls Explore Hands-On Science 

Annie Reiser
Earth System Research Laboratory
NOAA Research

December 4, 2008 - Against a backdrop of the scenic Rocky Mountains during a picturesque “Indian Summer” Saturday, Sally Ride Science™ set up for a day of science discovery and fun on the student center plaza of the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs .  Sally Ride Science is dedicated to encouraging young girls to learn more about math and science.

The NOAA Boulder Labs joined a dozen other booths on the plaza to display their science and technology and hand out educational resources.  NOAA Boulder Outreach and Coordinating Council members rounded up hundreds of NOAA posters to hand out.  The bold colorful graphics attracted large numbers of students and sparked many educational exchanges between the girls and outreach coordinators. 

David Khaligi of UCCS said, “The NOAA table was a hit with participants!” With several hundred girls and their parents, teachers, and mentors attending, it was no surprise that the NOAA supplies were nearly depleted before the audience assembled to hear Sally Ride’s keynote address.

An enthusiastic Sally Ride, America’s first woman in space, captured the attention of eager listeners with her stories of space adventure and of how she made her dream of becoming an astronaut come true.  She answered questions like, “What was your favorite thing about being in space?”; “Were you afraid before liftoff?”; and “What kind of subjects did you study in school?”  Her answers, “second to none, weightlessness”; “YES!”; and “English, Math, and Science” were the basis of in-depth and interesting answers that revealed Ride’s family background, life experiences, and personal character.

After Ride’s presentation, participants broke into groups to attend hands-on science workshops. Two NOAA Boulder scientists led well-attended interactive sessions for the rest of the afternoon.  Robin Warnken of NOAA’s National Geophysical Data Center wowed her classes with the power of Earth’s destructive hazards (earthquakes and tsunamis) in her plate-tectonics talk titled, “Shake Rattle and Roll.” Carrie Morrill of the National Climatic Data Center enthralled her classes with an engaging exercise in paleoclimatology titled “Climate Detective” in which the budding scientists explored sediment samples to identify how they tell a story about past climate.  Both women talked to the girls about what it is like to have a career in science and expanded on possibilities outside their own areas of expertise.