A Conference on Career Options for Young Women in Grades 6-10

Expanding your Horizons is a nationwide (in the United States) program geared at exposing young women to science and math careers. The program is directed by the Math/Science Network, which is headquartered in Oakland, California. More than 90 conferences are held at different locations every year.

The stated goals of Expanding Your Horizons are:

1. To increase young women's interest in science and mathematics
2. To foster awareness of career opportunities for women in math and science related fields
3. To provide participants with the chance to meet and talk with women working in many different occupations

I recently assisted in a workshop at the 2001 Expanding Your Horizons conference held at Carlow College in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Some of the workshops available at this conference were:

Building Bridges (taught by a civil engineer)
Inside Your Computer
Fighting Tuberculosis with Computers
Electronics Building Project (participants put together a radio)
Polymer Power

The workshop that I assisted with was called "Is There A Robot In Your Future?". Several computer science and robotics students from Carnegie Mellon University and I helped 7th and 8th grade girls assemble and program small robots built out of Legos. The goal of the project was to build a robot that could push a ping pong ball across a table.

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