A group of 25 Pacific Middle School students recently participated in the Expanding Your Horizons event at Highline Community College. Expanding Your Horizons is a day of career exploration in math, science, and technology through hands-on workshops for 7th and 8th grade girls. The workshop is sponsored by the American Association of University Women and Highline Community College. This conference provides role models in math, science, and technology careers. Participants may pick from a menu of 21 workshops ranging from biology, chemistry, coaching, computers and technology, and ecology/environmental science, to engineering and physics, fire services, math and finance, medical technology and health sciences, and zoology.
Marshay Cooper, Rachael Champion, Tina Bierig, and MJ Atwood participated in a workshop on aeronautical engineering. “We learned about some concepts in aeronautical engineering, like force and lift, stuff like that”, said MJ. “We blew on pieces of paper and the air created force underneath the paper causing it to lift up.”
“In one experiment we used a candle and either a box or a can. We found out that you can’t blow out a candle that is behind a box just by blowing on the box, but you can blow out a candle positioned behind a can, because air travels around the can. That is why airplanes are designed in a cylinder shape,” said Tina.
“We both predicted that when we blew on two ping pong balls the force of the air would separate the balls. But, it worked the opposite. The force of air travelling around the ping pong balls pushed them together,” said Marshay and Rachael.
In the end, the girls put wooden airplanes together and went outside to test fly them.
Students were accompanied by teacher Theresa Lucrisia-Bradley.
