In AWE of the Penn GEMS

Most campers this summer found themselves making friendship bracelets and singing songs around a campfire. But 28 middle school girls are spending one week at a camp this summer where they create their own lip gloss and make DNA glow in the dark.

In its first year, the Penn Girls in Engineering, Math and Science week-long summer camp - held Aug. 4-8 - gives these girls the opportunity to foster their interest in math and science while having fun at the same time.

When Advancing Women in Engineering - the initiative that runs Penn GEMS - began last fall, its members decided that encouraging girls to remain interested in math and science should be one of their main priorities.

"One thing that a lot of researchers have shown is that during middle school, interest drops in math and science for girls," explained AWE director Michele Grab. "When they turn 12 and 13, it becomes not as cool to like math and science."

Through the GEMS program, AWE members hope to encourage girls who just completed the sixth, seventh and eighth grades to continue to take math and science courses in high school and through college, Grab said.

The activities the campers participate in give the girls a taste of what it's really like to be an engineer or scientist.

"The image that people have of engineering is that it's a solitary activity that's not fun that you do in a cubicle all alone, and it scares girls off," said Grab.

Penn GEMS programming tears down these stereotypes. "It's not just cubicle work or only something that mathematicians and scientists can specialize in," clarified Engineering and College junior Marissa Krupen, a GEMS counselor. "In this program, they've been able to make their own animation shorts, make lip gloss, precipitate out some of their own DNA and so much more through common engineering techniques and all in the span of a week."

Both Penn faculty and Ph.D. candidates taught the classes that make up the GEMS program.

Third-year Ph.D. student Catherine Stocker taught a class entitled "Imagination to Animation." The class used a program called Alice to teach the campers the basics of computer programming.

"It is important to expose kids to computer science while they're young and to do it in an exciting way," Stocker said with regards to her class and its role in the GEMS program.

Grab said that due to the incredible response the program has received from both campers and their schools, AWE will continue to run the GEMS camp during future summers.

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