S.E. Idaho girls explore futures in STEM
In teaching our children about career opportunities in STEM, science, technology, engineering, and math, the Idaho National Laboratory held its 11th annual My Amazing Future event on Friday. The goal of the program is to encourage young ladies to pursue careers in STEM.
“Just to have fun and experience what the people around here do. I kind of want to be a neurologist because, myself, I do have a brain tumor. And I just want to know what is going on up there and how to explore it,” said participant Tenley Curtiss.
At a time when women are underrepresented in STEM professional fields, the program hopes to show girls how scientific and technical fields can provide exciting professional opportunities.
“It’s most enjoyable to do this for the girls. They get to work with other women. Other engineers, other scientists, the biologists, the folks that work with robotics. Just to have them have that kind of interaction with researchers who are in the business, it not only helps them, but it reminds us why we went into it. Their energy,” said Catherine Riddle, a radiochemist at the INL.
It gave more than 150 eighth grade girls the opportunity to explore topics such as DNA extraction from a strawberry, cybersecurity, radioisotope thermoelectric generators, hands-on chemistry and more.
They got to interact with the INL’s researchers, engineers, and scientists, and were able to participate in 15 hands-on sessions, such as Riddle’s session on nuclear forensics and radiochemistry.
“Density, florescences, all the things that I scientist would do. So they basically become the scientific experts on the scene for this workshop,” Riddle said.
“I’m here to learn about the STEM program and what it has to offer. This is kind of my first taste. I really liked the surgery out in the other building. I want to be a nurse when I grow up so I’ll be around it,” said participant Billie Nate.
The young ladies that participated Friday were from all over southeast Idaho, and were very excited to learn and experience new things within stem they never knew before.
