The American Association of University Women (AAUW) runs hands-on science and math camps each summer called Tech Trek with the goal of encouraging, motivating, and inspiring girls in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). Since its inception in 1998, over 9,000 girls have attended one of the camps! This year, AAUW added a core class in cybersecurity after Symantec issued a grant of $100,000 to expand the Tech Trek curriculum. In July, the class was piloted in three camp locations – Bowling Green State University in Ohio, Stanford University, and the University of California, Irvine. Today we hear from Gabrielle, a Tech Trekker who attended the Bowling Green summer camp this year! Gabrielle is a busy 8th-grade student that spends her time playing her saxophone and serving balls in volleyball.
I first found out about the Tech Trek camp through my science teacher. I was always really involved in class and she encouraged me to look into it. Science and math are my two favorite subjects, and so when she told me about it – that it was an all-girls science and math camp – I was really interested. It is a weeklong, sleepover camp at the Bowling Green State University that includes different science and math related activities. I spoke with my dad about it and decided to join. It was an amazing experience and I learned about so many different things that I never knew about or even thought of as science or math. It was also all about sending a message that girls are strong and powerful. The days were filled with a lot of hands-on and group activities and it was a mixture of classroom learning and fun field trips.
Before starting the camp, you have to pick your top three choices for a core class. The core class is part of your classroom learning that you do every day and I was really happy to get the cybersecurity one. In the core class, we mainly focused on coding and how it’s involved with cybersecurity. I never knew what coding was before, but it sounded really interesting and I was excited that I could go to a camp to learn about it. We also examined a few stories and news reports of cyber hacks to demonstrate how often and how fast identity theft can happen. I remember a specific exercise that showed how fast money can be stolen and we couldn’t believe it – over $1000 in 13 minutes! Everyone in the class was so surprised about it. We also got to watch a movie about the Enigma Machine and Alan Turing, the British computer scientist and cryptographer.
During the camp, I also had the chance to get involved with other STEM activities from dissecting animals to working with robotics. One of the activities was about microbiology and I examined a sample of rat’s blood in a microscope to look at cancer to see how it works in the blood. It was amazing to find out about all the different things scientists do, but yet how they all come from similar places. What I found most interesting about the whole experience was the similarities between the sciences and technology. I had the opportunity to dissect a shark as well as dissect a computer and I was most impressed by how living life can transfer into technology. Making that connection, about the similarities between science and technology, was the most interesting learning.
My school has a technology class but this camp gave me a different look into the world of technology. In the technology class, we look at different machinery and engineering. We worked with robots last year, which we also used at Tech Trek. The teacher gives us different levels we can chose from, from easy to hard, and it can be very challenging if we take on the harder exercises. After Tech Trek I’m up for the harder challenges. I’m feeling more confident at taking those on!
One of my favorite evenings was Professional Women’s Night when lots of women from all sorts of backgrounds in STEM came to the campus to speak about what they do. I was inspired by the fact that there is a lot more out there than I had expected. Although STEM may seem like just a science class in school, there are many professions out there.
