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Monday, February 25, 2013

Saturday, February 16th



Saturday, February 16th, 2013 - Day 3 of GO-GIRL Winter Semester 2013 :)

























Today was Day 3 in the classroom and our first of three Parent Cafés for the semester! The Parent Cafés inform parents about what their daughters are doing in GO-GIRL. Plus, it gives parents the opportunity to network with each other.




Today, the GO-GIRLs took a look at ethics in relation to research. After a short presentation by their mentors, the girls had to fill out a worksheet about ethical dilemmas and point out what might be wrong. They learned that in order to have a good survey, you need to be considerate of your participants and be honest. In small groups, the students discussed why they believed each dilemma from the worksheet was or was not ethical. The goal for this activity was to show the students why others take surveys and to learn how to make a good survey. This is very important because each group will be conducting their own research throughout the semester.




Later, the GO-GIRLs grabbed laptops to work with the software, Inspire Data. They used Inspire Data to practice making their own surveys. For lunch, the GO-GIRLs and mentors enjoyed a variety of options at the WSU Towers Dorm dining hall. After lunch, the girls did an icebreaker and explored different characteristics about themselves.




We have Saturday, February 23rd off for a break, but we look forward to seeing everyone bright-eyed and bushy-tailed back for another day of GO-GIRL this Saturday, March 2nd!




We will be meeting at the College of Education for our regularly planned GO-GIRL hours of 9:30 am to 2:30 pm. The girls will then be walking over to our WSU Undergraduate Library where our wonderful Library Science staff will be talking to the girls about best practice researching, conducting responsible internet research, and so much more! They will show the girls some valuable sites to do research on the web and discuss some of the do's and don't's to contemporary internet research. The Library Science staff is excellent and this is sure to be a fun and knowledgeable morning for the girls! :)


Saturday, February 16, 2013

GO-GIRL Parent Café #1

Saturday, February 16th, 2013

We are pleased to have had about 40 parents of current GO-GIRLs join us this morning at our 1st in a series of 3 Parent Cafés. Dr. Sally and the parents discussed their girls, misconceptions of who an engineer is, the GG curriculum, Inspire Data, and more! Great questions and comments! :)

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Saturday, February 9th, 2013

Saturday, February 9th, 2013

Today was Day Two for GO-GIRL in the classroom! The girls learned all about surveys and the different ways to conduct a survey. The first activity was to brainstrom about what surveys are, who takes surveys, and when they are used. Many girls spoke about surveys they took on social websites. Each group came up with their own research topic that they will be investigating (and presenting) at the end of the semester. The GO-GIRLs proposed a topic they would like to ask questions about and then had to vote from the top 3 topics.

Also, the girls in Groups 2 and 6 had a lot of fun during their team building activity, each team formed a chain, or a "worm," and the head of the chains (the first person) had to try and catch the tail of the chains (the last person) without breaking the link between the group members. It was a lot of fun and the girls really enjoyed it! Group 2 won ;)

The students enjoyed lunch in the College of Education, bonding over warm pizza, salad, dessert, and pop! After lunch, the girls split into groups and were assigned a computer and explored the program "Inspire Data." This program helps students to organize and interpret information and data that they will collect from the surveys they will be creating over the next few weeks. It will be exciting to see what all of the groups come up with for their survey questions and what the data from them will show!








Wednesday, February 6, 2013

A Stellar 1st day of GO-GIRL!

Saturday, February 2nd, 2013

Well, we are off and running! Just looking at the girls in their groups by the end of the day today, you would never know that they were perfect strangers this morning.

The day was spent getting to know one another and the mentors.  What better way to do get to know one another than to play icebreakers!

One of the icebreakers was called, "Honey if you love me, will you please smile for me?" In this exercise, all of the students stood in a circle while one student went to someone she hoped she could make smile (the point of the game being not to smile, but that was near impossible for everyone-the giggles were contagious!). If the participant smiled, the smiler (then "it") would continue to ask someone else this question and hope that the next person would smile. This activity broke the ice between girls who were not to familiar with each other and were out of their comfort zone. It was a very easy-going first day that helped the girls get comfortable with everyone and their new environment. By the end of the day, the girls went from being strangers to forming long-term friendships! The laughing and giggling was heard from every classroom throughout the day as more games and icebreakers ensued.

Also, the girls learned about graphs and how to analyze and interpret them, which will come in handy later in the semester as the girls will be researching a topic, administering surveys, and analyzing data. At noon, the girls enjoyed a buffet-style lunch in the Towers dorm dining hall. After lunch, the girls went back to their classrooms, paired up with a partner and were given a Macbook. They used the computers to take an online survey regarding futures careers and other interesting topics.

Finally, the girls came up with team names for their groups. We're proud to present our GO-GIRL groups for the Winter 2013 semester:

Group 1 (Mentors Becky & Taylor): Queen Bee Yellow Jackets
Group 2 (Mentors Macy & Radha): Invincible Investigators
Group 3 (Mentors Jodi & Mary): TTYL (Talented Team of Young Ladies)
Group 4 (Mentors Fayzha & La'Shana): FBI Girls (Fabulous, Beautiful, Intelligent)
Group 5 (Mentors Nina & Sarah): SM&ART (Science, Math, and Art)
Group 6 (Mentors Melissa & Terrel): H4 (High Heels High Hopes)

Looking forward to our 2nd day! :)