TOPEKA, Kan. (WIBW) – For 18 years, Washburn University’s Women in Science Day has given young girls a chance to see what a future in science could look like.
“When they get to do it hands-on and actually see the results, you can kind of see this spark,” said Susan Bjerke, Washburn University Associate Professor of Biology. “They get excited about being able to do science and not just learn it.”
Over 300 seventh-grade girls from across Topeka chose from hands-on labs including making plastic from milk, creating hail and tornadoes, isolating strawberry DNA, and more.
“I think it’s important because then we get more understanding of science and get more hands-on activities if at your school you don’t do hands-on activities,” said Aliyah Franklin, a French Middle School student. “It can make girls who thought they wanted to do something else get more into science.”
Through experimenting themselves, students are seeing how science can be both interesting and important to the world around them.
“I think it definitely sparks interest to especially young girls, most of them are seventh graders,” said Lilly Ahumaga, a Washburn Rural Middle School student. “And shows them that science can really help people and help just the world in general.”
For some students, seeing women lead these experiments can help make a future in science feel more possible.
“Sometimes we get them back as students years later, so they are seventh graders and we obviously don’t see them for a while, but they’ll say, ‘I remember when I came to do Women in Science at Washburn,’” Bjerke said. “A lot of the labs are led by female scientists, so they can see that this is something they can be doing.”
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