Express Yourself

Up to this point in Express Yourself!, our art and literature concentration, the girls have worked with 10 different media.  Most often they’ve worked with acrylic paint on different surfaces. They have painted their favorite characters on wood, created dot paintings, and painted their clay creations. Participants also began to explore pastels following tutorials on how to draw landscapes and still lifes, and free form clay sculptures and digital sand sculptures through thisissand.com.  The girls have also explored fiber arts by learning the basics of traditional and finger knitting, as well as tie dying and screen printing on pillow cases.

TechGyrls

TechGyrls have also been learning about subjects as varied as architecture, chemistry, coding, and engineering. Thus far, they  have learned about how to measure substances with graduated cylinders and flasks by making slime and learned about the properties of borax by making borax crystal jewelry.

They have also learned how different shapes lend stability to structures, and what challenges properties of building materials present  by creating their own skyscrapers out of pasta and gummy bears.  Creating their own websites has also been an ongoing project for the participants. They have learned how to create the foundational code for a website, add and alter text, and add pictures to their websites.

Recent Partnerships

Our some of our biggest recent highlights have been participating in Fluor’s engineering challenge, our visit to the Foundation for Living Beauty,  a presentation by  JPL Engineer, Janelle I. Wellons.

For two consecutive Tuesdays in March, the participants in GEAP helped the Foundation for Living Beauty create wellness kits for women undergoing cancer treatment. It was a great experience for the girls and a big help to the foundation and we hope to continue to partner with them. You can read more about the endeavor in our press release. 

On March 21st, we were visited by Janelle I. Wellons, an engineer at JPL who has worked on the Cassini Mission, a satellite mission to observe Saturn, and several other projects. The girls were able to learn about the work that NASA is doing in our solar system and atmosphere to better understand our world and beyond. They were also able to ask their own questions about her work, the nature of NASA’s missions, what education she need to get where she is.

Most recently, the girls participated in Fluor’s Engineering challenge to create a machine out of paper, cardboard, tape, pencils, and rubber bands that can launch a ball and return it to the original launcher over a paper “net”. The Fluor Corporation will pick a winner from among the entrants for a $1,000 prize for the program. The girls had a great deal of fun puzzling out the best way to create their ball launchers and entering the contest.  You can learn more about the challenge here.

Registration is for the Girls Empowerment After-School Program is still open! The program is free and open to girls ages 10-14, Monday -Thursday  4pm-6pm. Visit our Girls Empowerment After-School Program page for more information on how to register and please spread the word to any girls you think would benefit from our program.