The 10th annual UCSC Expanding Your Horizons Conference for high school girls will take place on Saturday, October 9, on the UC Santa Cruz campus. Open to young women in grades 9 through 12 from throughout the Monterey Bay area, Expanding Your Horizons (EYH) is a popular program designed to nurture enthusiasm for science and engineering through hands-on activities and interactions with women in the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields.
"We give girls a chance to engage in really fun activities and meet women who are passionate about their STEM careers," said Nancy Cox-Konopelski, director of the Academic Excellence Program at UC Santa Cruz.
The keynote speaker at this year's EYH conference will be Danielle Feinberg of Pixar Animation Studios, whose talk is titled "To Infinity and Beyond! The Math and Science Behind Movie Making." Feinberg will share the story of her experiences as one of the few women engineering students at Harvard and how she became director of photography at Pixar.
In hands-on workshops, participants will learn about topics such as how scientists use tags to track endangered species and how law enforcement uses DNA to solve crimes. Other workshops include "Glow Power," in which girls will build a luminescent solar window to power a circuit, and "Chemistry in Nature," which explores flavors, fragrances, and pharmaceuticals.
For more information about the Expanding Your Horizons program at UCSC and to register for the October 9 EYH Conference, visit the EYH web site.
