Tech Trek, the weeklong camp sponsored by the American Association of University Women with some funding help from the I.D.E.S. Society, was held July 23 to 29 on college campuses around California. Tech Trek focuses on science and math for eighth-grade girls. This year, several Coastside girls took part.
Experiences varied, but participants said they had fun - and some made serious life choices.
 Clockwise from left, Kelsey Briana Moore, Katharine Goss, Sabina Perlsweig, Giselle Mendoza and Anita Oettel-Flaherty went to Tech Trek this summer. |
"Now I know I want to be a forensic scientist," declared Kelsey Briana Moore of Half Moon Bay after learning about that field in Tech Trek at Stanford University.
First held in 1998 at Stanford, Tech Trek promotes girls' interests in science and math through the tumultuous middle-school years. Campers, recommended by teachers, spanned a broad socioeconomic and educational range.
In a week designed to offer a well-rounded experience with math, science and college life, participants chose core classes from disciplines including marine biology, bacteriology, astronomy, biotechnology and math. Spending the carefully supervised week in the dorms of participating campuses, they sampled college life to come.
Depending on their core class, some girls extracted DNA from fruit. Anita Oettel-Flaherty of Half Moon Bay learned that strawberries have more DNA than watermelon or kiwi. Some studied the life in different zones of the ocean. Others studied many types of bacteria.
Goss helped make a hot-air balloon and got up at 5:30 a.m. to see it fly.
"It went over a two-story building," she said.
"I learned how fish get oxygen from the water and how we're polluting the water," said Giselle Mendoza of Half Moon Bay. "The ocean's a big part of daily life we take for granted."
Afternoons are devoted to related projects or field trips to places like the San Francisco Bay, San Joaquin River, Challenger Space Center, and more. Evenings are filled with dorm activities or talks by women professionals in science who related their education and professional lives.
The hands-on experiences, and visits by the professionals, made impressions that lasted beyond the week.
Moore started with a core in marine biology, but a side class in forensics made her change her mind.
"That was like a mystery," she said. "You have to go out and figure out the mystery and collect evidence and DNA, ask questions, go to the lab and identify the person who did it."
A field trip to a biotechnology lab helped Oettel-Flaherty zero in on what she didn't want to do. Sitting in a lab all day looked "fun for a while, but after awhile, it's the same thing every day."
Perlsweig said she'll remember words about different jobs from the professionals. "It helped me decide what kind of science to major in in college," she said.
Mariela Lopez of Pescadero also said that hearing those stories helped her dare to dream.
Coming from a lower-income family, she said, she was struck by hearing a woman professional, Mexican like her, describe getting into Stanford. "You can get where you want if you try and ignore the money stuff," she said. "(The professional) tried and tried, her parents supported her, and she got into Stanford. That really impressed me.
"I thought it was amazing."
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