Thursday, 11 February saw Whites Hill's first celebration of the International Day of Women and Girls in Science. The day recognizes the critical role women and girls play in science and technology, with the purpose to promote full and equal access and participation in science for women and girls. This was Whites Hill's first celebration of this day which is in its 6th year of global recognition.
At the college, girls participated in a range of events on Thursday 11/02 and Friday 12/02. The 11s and 12s participated in a panel discussion containing 8 scientists, while the 7s watched DNA being extracted by a Molecular Geneticist. The Year 4s learnt about nest box monitoring with an Environment Officer from B4C, while the Year 10s video chatted with a User Experience Specialist. In Year 5, the girls learnt what a day in a Geologist's life looks like, and the Year 9s created apps with a Senior Developer. Spaghetti towers helped the Year 6s understand the important role Civil Engineers play, and the Year 8s developed their own understanding on this as they video chatted with an engineer working in Gladstone Council. Our littlest students in the school focussed their learning on space travel and the progress that's being made there by women...they even got to watch astronauts brush their teeth in space (not an easy task). And lastly, as recognition for their academic success in the Science and Technology fields, our top students in Years 7-12 participated in one of 2 workshops run by the University of Queensland's Women in Engineering group, where they looked at renewable energy solutions and coding.
THANK YOU
Whilst we thanked these women on the day, we want to give them full recognition now. These 14 women gave up time from their working and studying days to visit our school and share their lives, professions and skills with us. Our hope as a college, is that the conversations that this day has started, will resonate with these young women far past the events of last week.
https://whiteshillsc.eq.edu.au/supportandresources/formsanddocuments/documents/events/whsc-thanks-women-in-science21.pdf