Penn College

SMART Girls program at Penn College offers career exploration

Pennsylvania College of Technology will hold its fifth annual residential SMART Girls (Science and Math Applications in Real World Technologies for Girls) program July 10-13.

Fifty girls are expected to participate in the residential program, which is for young women entering ninth and 10th grades. July 1 is the registration deadline.

To date, 403 teens have participated in SMART Girls, which also includes Saturday sessions for girls entering seventh and eighth grades. The program features workshops designed to expose young women to career options in technologies that are currently dominated by men, and it encourages strong foundations in math and science during high school.

"Mystery at 123 Maple" tops the list of popular workshops again this year. It allows the girls to use fingerprints, "bloods," fibers and powders to work through a mystery and identify the suspect.

Other workshops include global-positioning systems, Web design, wildlife nesting and the basics of operating heavy equipment. Paramedic training, the design and installation of landscape lighting, and the exploration of small creatures that live in streams and ponds also are emphasized in the workshops.

Field trips this year include the Williamsport Municipal Water Authority and Williamsport Sanitary Authority, the Lycoming College Planetarium, West Pharmaceutical Services, Susquehanna Health System and the Lycoming County Landfill.

Nydia Vasquez, assistant engineer at Turner Construction Co. in Philadelphia, will be the keynote speaker for the final luncheon for the SMART Girls and parents who have made reservations.

For more information about the SMART Girls programs at Penn College, call (570) 327-4502, send e-mail to smartgirls@pct.edu, or visit http://www.pct.edu/smartgirls

Last Updated March 19, 2009

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