Girlstart's Parent Association toured St. Edward's University last weekend. Parents and students enjoyed learning more about higher education opportunities in the Austin area. 

Mining asteroids has been a popular topic this week, especially since billionaire investors announced they were embarking on an ambitious goal of mining the natural resources found on asteroids.

This is nothing new for Girlstart participants, who engineered their own asteroid landers last month during our Girls In STEM Conference, in collaboration with the NASA Human Health & Performance Center. 

During Girlstart's annual Girls In STEM Conference the girls were challenged with the 1st All-Girl Mission to create a vehicle to land and collect minerals on an asteroid. Using the materials included in their bags they were to build a vehicle that could grab onto the asteroid’s surface and attach an object that could collect minerals from the asteroid. Check out all the creative and unique asteroid landers the girls made! Click HERE to download the worksheet for creating your own asteroid lander.

The Girlstart girls at McCoy Elementary learned about landslides and natural disasters by creating a model city that included buildings, a bridge, and a hill or mountain.  The activity explored the causes of landslides, such as earthquakes, and modeled the Richter scale by creating a way to measure the intensity of the shakes to the model city.  With different shake intensities, we observed the changes in the landslides and the damage to our cities.  We discussed materials involved in landslides including sand, rocks, debris, and water, and how the damage done by these different landslide materials would change.  The girls learned about Seismologists who study earthquakes and use their knowledge and models to predict when and where earthquakes could occur.  This knowledge of landslides and earthquakes can help in designing cities and communities safely and how people can protect themselves from natural disasters.