Wizards of Goddard Hall
Program Overview
The Wizards of Goddard Hall is an innovative program for girls in middle and high school throughout the southern part of New Mexico. The program aims to provide girls with role models who actively engage them in exploring how science is fun and relevant to their lives. By placing girls in hands-on situations of creative uses of science and engineering, the program will build confidence in their ability to succeed and nurture positive attitudes toward STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) study. The project will help the girls explore the economics of cosmetics, soaps, space, food, and film and how none of these industries would be possible without the real-life wizardry of different types of engineering-chemical, civil, aerospace, agriculture, environmental, and industrial. Participants will gain exposure to the multiple types of careers within the STEM fields that relate to film, nutrition, and cosmetics.
Program Goals
- Engage girls in STEM activities through inventive topics
- Nurture positive attitudes toward STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) study
- Increase STEM awareness to a population of middle school students who are traditionally under-represented in STEM fields
- Create a student network to share ideas and projects
- Provide local middle school STEM/MESA teachers information to enhance established school STEM programs
- Introduce participating students to a variety of STEM careers by NMSU faculty experts in their fields
- Establish connections with the RTP mentorship pipeline in order to keep students informed of ongoing RTP activities and programs (e.g., RTP-RASSI)
Workshops
Cosmetic Engineering
you will tackle the vocabulary, develop and create your own product (from local, natural ingredients), and design your own labels. In a workshop on the chemistry of making make-up, students will work with NMSU's engineering experts in the manufacturing of lipstick and lip balm.
Soap, Bubbles and Fragrances
The Wizards of Goddard Hall will experiment with soaps, natural ingredients and getting squeaky clean. The challenge? To make a prototype soap that girls will like, use, create out of natural ingredients, and want to own.
Rocket Science for Wizards
You could be the next female astronaut. In this workshop students will learn fundamentals of aerospace design and make a flying machine-Whose will fly the furthest and highest? How can you maximize the trajectory of flight?
Fast Food Chemistry:
How to Engineer the Perfect Fry
From the chemistry of cooking to interesting nutritional basics, the Wizards of Goddard Hall will take the taste-fat-nutritional challenge of working to use knowledge of cooking chemistry to engineer the best-tasting and best-for-you french fry.
Eligibility Requirements:
- Be a female (age 11-18)
- Be enrolled in a New Mexico high school or middle school
- Plan to attend college after high school
- Provide a letter of interest
- Students with disabilities are encouraged to apply
The Wizards of Goddard Hall is free of charge to participants