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Science Literacy ~ Sisterhood ~ Self-Confidence
Spring Newsletter
 June 2008
Dear friends,

Hope you've had a wonderful spring! We are delighted that more than 300 girls and Junior Assistants, and over 70 volunteers were able to join us this past semester! As we end another year of programming, I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to a distinguished group of volunteers who come from BU, Harvard, Lesley MCPHS, MIT, Northeastern, Simmons, Tufts, Wellesley; Amgen, Bose, Comcast, Draper, General Mills, Genzyme & Novartis. We simply cannot run this program without you.

We are thrilled that we will have eight high school graduates this year. These young women have been with us as participants, Junior Assistants, Rocket Team and Media Team members, for 5 years or more. You can read more about them and where they are headed in the closing paragraph.

I hope to see you at our first annual awards ceremony and benefit, Catalyst, on June 26. In addition to our esteemed awardees, you will have a chance to meet our new board members, our alum, graduates, current participants, and others supporters of Science Club.

Enjoy!

Program Highlights: FDA Field Trip & Green Building Tour
Girls preparing for egg drop

Our 5th Grade Mae Jemison Astronauts at the Cambridgeport School went on a field trip to show off what they learned in their Blast Off! curriculum with staff at the FDA in Winthrop. The adults in turn eagerly shared the girls various experiments they've set up in the labs. The girls definitely left on a natural high. Thanks to our volunteer Tess Williams who worked with the girls this semester, and to Kathleen Sousa at the FDA for reaching out to us and providing the girls with such a confidence- building and affirming experience!

The Shirley Ann Jackson Physicists (6th graders) in Lawrence concluded their place-based curriculum with a public green building tour of Our House, the building where Movement City, our partner, is located. Architect Bruce Hampton who designed the building showed the girls the various sustainable design features at the beginning of the semester. The girls incorporated what they learned about insulation, solar panels, compact fluorescent light bulbs into their tour. Thanks to a grant from Roots & Shoots New England, girls were able to give away CFLs & recycled pens at the conclusion of the tour. The more than 40 guests were impressed with the girls' delivery and gave them thumbs up! We'll let you know if there's an encore!
Red Sox, Dinner Tix & Portrait Raffle: Deadline, June 26!!

Can't attend our event but want to support us before our fiscal year's end? Buy a raffle ticket! Prizes include:
A pair of Red Sox Tickets (Value = close to priceless)
September 23rd, vs Cleveland Indians.

Family portrait (Value = $650)
Family sitting and an 11 x 14 print from David Fox Photographer

$100 Dinner Certificate
May be redeemed at Craigie Street Bistrot, or the new Craigie on Main opening in Fall 2008.

Cost : $10 each; 3 for $25

Winners will be drawn at our Catalyst event on the evening of June 26th, but you do not have to be present to win!

Online ticketing will end at 11 a.m. on Thursday, so don't delay!

Purchase Raffle Tickets on Acteva
Shout Outs
Kudos to friends and volunteers

Congratulations to former SCFG board member Carol Locke, whose company, Omega Brite, won the 2007 Nutrition Business Journal Business Achievement Awards.

Congratulations to SCFG Peer Leader and 2008 graduate Andrea (Evangelia) Kostopoulos for winning the Massachusetts State SkillsUSA contest, in the category of ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY, based on her SCFG Rocket Team project this year. She will be headed to the national SkillsUSA Championships in Kansas City from June 24-27th! Best of luck, Andrea!

Congratulations to SCFG staff Alicia Herman for giving birth to a pair of beautiful twin girls (fraternal!). We wish her family the best and are sure that the girls will grow to love exploring the world!
Catalyst 2008: June 26th
Diversity in Science and Engineering

Please join us in honoring Judy Ozbun and Lydia Villa-Komaroff for their unflagging efforts to make science and engineering accessible to females and minorities, from K-12 to college to professionals, locally and nationally.

MIT President Susan Hockfield will deliver a video address. Dr. Windham-Bannister, President and CEO of the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, will present the awards.

We thank the Office of Faculty Development and Diversity at Harvard University for being the lead sponsor for the event.

We hope you will join us!

Visit event website and purchase tickets
Welcome, new board members!

We welcome Jessica Holbert and Sharon Stone to our board! They were voted in during the March board meeting.

Jessica is an alum of SCFG and will spearhead the development of our Youth Council. Sharon brings additional finance and business development expertise that will help us expand. We're delighted to be working with them!

Read more about Jessica

Read more about Sharon
1,000 Family Science Kits

A little about the kits...they were designed by Todd Rider at Lincoln Labs. They provide the harder to get supplies for 24 science & engineering activities and experiments in 6 different fields -- mechanical & aerospace engineering, electrical engineering, physics, chemistry, biology, and astronomy. There are detailed and illustrated instructions for each experiment and several of them can even be repeated!

First, thanks to Todd Rider for sharing the instructions for the kit. Second, thanks to MIT's Alpha Phi Omega group who worked at several chapter meetings to prep for the actual event. They processed 1000 squares of difraction grating, 2000 polarizers, and 1000 Liquid Crystal squares! Third, thanks to Boston Scientific Foundation for specifically providing funding for part of this this project. Last but not least, we could not have done this without the volunteers who spent a pleasant April evening inside, assembling the kits! I think they had fun! (Thanks to Liz Power also for coordinating this effort and contributing to this article).

Pictures and description of the event + download instructions for the kit

The board and I would like to congratulate our eight graduating seniors-Andrea, Lillian, Louisa, Maryam, Nikki, Ruth, TeTe and Vassia. I have had the privilege of sitting down with them individually in conversation, and reviewed their resumes. I am amazed each time by what I learn about them. They are scholarship recipients, participants in various STEM competitions, leaders in other youth groups and in their faith communities, mentors outside of Science Club; accomplished athletes, singers and scholars.

We here at Science Club will sorely miss them as they enter college in the fall. They will be attending Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Regis College, Columbia University, Framingham State, Denison University, and Mass College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences.

We have no doubt that they will blossom and excel in their various undertakings, and wish them the best of luck! We hope they will return and visit us, or start a club through their college campus!

Thank you for supporting these young women in pursuing their dreams! I wish you all a wonderful summer.

Sincerely,

Connie
Connie Chow
Science Club for Girls