Above: For over 15 years, middle school girls have enjoyed exploring a world of STEM based careers thanks to a local women’s club. There’s an opportunity to do that again this spring. (2018 images previously cropped from Northborough Junior Women’s Club website)
If you want to encourage your 5th – 8th grade daughter(s) to explore a future in science, technology, engineering or math, take note.
The Northboro Junior Woman’s Club is putting on its annual STEM conference for girls in our shared school district.
The 2024 NJWC Women in STEM event is Saturday, March 23rd. (The deadline to sign up is March 16th, but I always suggest acting quickly. Enrollment is capped and your kids’ top choices for the workshops could also fill up.)
The 16th annual conference will be held at Algonquin Regional High School from 8:15 am – 2:00 pm.
After an opening presentation, the girls will be able to attend four interactive career workshops, followed by “lunch and networking”.
Organizers promote:
Presenters will explain what they do in their occupation and what sparked their interest in the field, their education, the rewards and challenges of their profession and provide hands-on exploration/activities.
The presenters are from an impressive list of employers including Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard University and Medical School, MA Dept of Environmental Protection, MA State Police Crime Lab, MassBiologics, the Museum of Science, Nike, Raytheon, Tufts University, and WCVB-TV.
This year, there are 22 workshops to choose from on a wide range of STEM careers:
- Architect — Dream It, Design It, Build It — All about Architecture
- Astronomy/Planetarium Education — STEM Under the Stars
- Biology/Chemistry and Medicine
- Biomedical Engineering — Biomedical Sensors
- Biotechnology and Drug Discovery — Unveiling the World of Genetics
- Clothing and Textiles — Science, Math and Fashion Design
- Environmental Science — Wetlands and Worms
- Forensic Science — CSI – How Scientists Play a Role in Criminal Investigations
- Innovation and Invention for Technology — We are ALL Inventors!
- Life Sciences/Bioengineering — gene therapy and biopharmaceuticals
- Manufacturing Engineer — How many engineers does it take?
- Meteorology — Behind the scenes of a weather forecast
- Nursing — Practical Nursing – Entry to Practice
- Physicians — from Residency to Practice
- Public Health — Disease Investigation and Data Analysis
- Research Scientist — Genetics
- Software Engineer – Machine Learning — What’s that Machine Learning (About You)?
- Speech-Language Pathologist — Talking, Eating, Speaking,
Swallowing – how does it all work! - STEM Educators — Bristlebots – create a mini-robot
- Veterinary Medicine — A Day in the Life of a Vet
- Yoga Instructor — The Science of Yoga
- Aviation — Everything Aviation: Aerospace Engineering, Air Traffic Control, Airport Management, Logistics, Air Pilot
For more details, and to register, click here. (To see a video of last year’s event, click here.)
Thank you Northborough Junior Women’s club for organizing such a worthwhile annual event. And for free!
Beth thanks for posting this. One of the longtime organizers of this event, Martha Michalewich, works with me so I have quite a bit of inside info. I encourage all parents of girls who are the correct ages to find a way to participate. The ladies that put this together make an enormous effort to put together this program. Just look at the number of professions that will be included. The event usually ends up “selling out” so if you are interested you should register sooner than later. The reviews from prior years’ participants have always been very positive. I wish I had had something like this to help me figure out what I wanted to do when I was young.