Tech Trek 2014 Powered by AAUW at Eckerd College

AAUW  AAUW is an acronym for American Association of University of Woman.  For 130 years AAUW has been empowering and improving the lives of woman.  AAUW promotes equity and education for woman and young girls.  AAUW has over 1,000 local branches and over 170,000 members and supporters.

Tech Trek  Tech Trek is a week long experience at various colleges and universities, revolved around STEM.  This opportunity is thrilling for 7 th grade girls who dream of perusing a career in the STEM fields.  Before attending Tech Trek, we were required to write an essay and have a face-to-face interview with a representative from AAUW.  At Tech Trek, you spend the week in the dorm rooms, participate in hands- on activities, and attend math and science classes.

Key-note speaker Lee-En Chung, Construction Consulting Engineer and Founder of Ivy Ventures, spoke to the campers about her path to her engineering career and how it was like in a field dominated by men.

Bridge Building+ Barbie bungee Jumping  We created bridges out of Balsa wood and tested to see how much pressure they could withstand.  We tied rubber bands to Barbie's feet and dropped her off a ledge to see how close we could get her to the ground without hitting the concrete.

“Geology in a Bottle” and “Coastal erosion.” In the, “Geology in a Bottle” workshop we explored the characteristics of different rocks. We then used colored sand to simulate some of Earth’s features. In the “Coastal erosion” lab we made a model of how coastal erosion effects land and how to prevent it from occurring.

Roller Coasters and “Weird Wacky Weather We constructed 3D paper model roller coasters. We were given templates of various tracks to assemble and create our own personal roller coaster. In “Weird Wacky Weather” we looked at educational websites involving STEM or ways to help the community. We also watched an inspirational poem written by Sarah Kay called “If I Should have a Daughter” Another thing we did was create T-shirts on global warming and read about ways to prevent global warming and reduce our carbon footprint.

Forensics and Robotics In forensics we investigated a “crime scene”, extracted DNA from strawberries and dusted our fingerprints with cocoa powder. We were given a fake crime to investigate and figure out the culprit. In robotics we programmed robots to maneuver around obstacles and experimented how far and how fast each function would work.

Professional Women's Night  On Professional Women’s night, we listened to four women who had experience in the STEM field as their life- long career.  Paula Wiggins (engineer), Marge Ostrom (researcher), Laura Spence (STEM coordinator and educator), and Susan Berlin (dentist)

Mote Marine Aquarium While at Mote Marine, we explored and observed different species of aquatic animals and were given a “behind the scenes” tour of the estuaries and bay. During our experience, we collected various organisms such as; shrimp, fish, and crustaceans.

SPECIAL THANKS TO…  Shirley Reed- Tech Trek director AAUW state of Florida  Eileen Recchia- State president AAUW state of Florida  Marge Ostrom-Assistant director AAUW state of Florida  Carol Newnam-Fundraising Chair AAUW state of Florida  Kira Schneider-Camp nurse  Dorm Monitors & Student counslers  ALL THE GENEROUS DONORS AND OTHER VOLUNTEERS