After School Week 12
All good things must come to an end, but at Girlstart After School at Youens Elementary, we’re ending the semester with a great big showcase party! Students recreated their favorite activities of the semester, then showed them off to their parents, school administrators, and our Deputy Director, Julie Shannan! The STEM skills and careers they learned are sure to follow them wherever they go next in life. When we say GIRL, you say START!
Girlstart: Shoot for the Stars
This week at Girlstart, our girls reflected on the knowledge they gained from this semester. Groups reviewed the various careers that they had learned about – landfill and pipeline engineers, soil scientists, and more! The students then wrote a letter to their future selves. It was exciting to hear girls discuss the wide variety of interesting, challenging, and exciting careers which they envisioned attaining in the future. In their letters, girls included steps they need to take and how they would know when they have reached their goal.
Finally, girls decorated shooting stars. These stars represented the knowledge that students will use to succeed. Because success looks different to every girl, they defined success for themselves in the middle of their stars. In the arms, they wrote about the knowledge they will need to acquire on their way to success. Finally, each girl wrote down a takeaway from the semester. At Girlstart, we know that successful women do not become successful by accident; they plan carefully, work hard, embrace challenges, and succeed on purpose! Girlstart students are gaining the goal-setting and planning skills they will need to succeed in middle school, high school, college, grad school, and beyond!
Hover Challenge
Have you ever been inside a submarine and wondered how it could float in water, but not sink all the way to the bottom? Build your very own submarine with this Hover Challenge and discover the two forces that act upon a submarine called buoyancy and gravity! Now go and challenge your friends to see whose submarine is the most successful.
Courtesy of Museum of Science + Industry Chicago
Did you know that only 2% of people write down their goals? At Girlstart, we’re all about cultivating an environment where girls can stand out, find their strengths, and discover new ideas! As the semester winds down, Girlstart students are looking to the future. This week, girls reviewed the semester together and created career clipboards.
To create the clipboards, girls were given ribbons of different colors to tie together. The colorful toppers represented the relationship between middle school, high school, post-secondary education, and family and friends. Club mentors explained that this support system will help girls succeed. Once each girl completed their rainbow ribbon ties, they began to brainstorm their personal goals. To help students with forming goals, mentors referred back to a few careers that were covered during the semester, including marine engineers, ecologists, and environmental scientists. Students decorated their clipboards with various goals they had for middle school, high school, college, and beyond!
At Girlstart, we truly believe in the power of STEM education to develop great female leaders. We are almost at the end of the semester, but our students are only getting started on their path to success!
