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MU helps educate Girl Scouts about science

Amylovesyah
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Around 130 junior Girl Scouts will come to the University of Missouri Saturday for a workshop called “The Magic of Chemistry.”

MU graduate student, Connie Pfeiffer who is studying chemistry, helped organize the event in hopes that the workshop will have a positive impact on the girls. 

“One of the main things is -- we’re doing it with girl scouts -- so we really want girls to be interested in science,” Pfeiffer said. “So most people think we’re crazy old men or something like that, you know the Einstein thing, but we just want them to know that it’s just regular girls doing that. So they can do it as well. ”

The girls will be focusing on the chemistry of colors. The program features lessons plans about natural and synthetic dyes, different types of luminescence, why some materials and animals glow in the dark and colors in chemical reactions. This event brought Girl Scouts to MU for about 15 years.

“This particular event has such a long standing history that girls know about it and they’re excited about it,” Melissa Case, the Leadership Specialist of Missouri Heartland, said. “They’ve either attended one of the other ones in a previous year or they’ve had a sibling that’s attended.”

Women who hold a degree or have a job in science, technology, engineering and math – or STEM – are underrepresented due to a variety of factors, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration. Those factors may include gender stereotyping and few female STEM role models.

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