Saturday, March 2nd, 2013

Week 4 of GO-GIRL

Saturday, March 2nd, 2013


This week, the girls went to the WSU Undergraduate Library (UGL) and went to 3 different presentations put on by our wonderful WSU Library Scientists! One presentation taught the girls how to decide if a website can be considered a good source to use in their research and writing. They also learned what to look for in a website, especially before entering personal information on the internet. The girls learned to look for "https:" before the web address. Another presentation taught the girls how to use the Michigan Electronic Library (MeL) system (accessible anytime and anywhere on the web at www.mel.org), and search for books and sources. The girls also learned about how to cite sources for papers in APA and MLA formats, and the presenters stressed that this would be useful information later on in the girls' educational careers. The final presentation was about creating a good Power Point presentation that would teach people effectively (i.e. by properly using backgrounds, different fonts, text color, photos, how much should be on a good slide, etc.). The girls got a chance to fix up a very poor-looking presentation and they made some well-needed adjustments by changing text color and placement, and making uniform backgrounds for the slides.




After lunch in the Towers dorms cafeteria, the girls learned about biases, and how to avoid using them in questions while creating a survey. They learned about how some participants will adjust their answers to be socially acceptable, and how some questions are inappropriate. They also learned about the bias that a survey taker could have, and how to avoid that for when they create their own surveys.





















We're going to be going to the WSU Mort Harris Rec Center in the afternoon next Saturday, March 9th. See you then! :)

Go-GIRL 2011 Day 7

Saturday, March 26th, 2011

Today was our long awaited trip to the WSU College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences.

Each group of GGs had a pharmacy student lead them around the building. Each 5 sessions that the GGs attended exposed the girls to different fields in the health sciences.

In the Occupational Therapy (OT) session the girls made a bracelet or key-chain and tested how strong their fingers and hands are by squeezing a mechanism as hard as they could. Then they learned the average strength of girls their age. They learned why OT is important and why people do it.

In the Physical Therapy (PT) session, they learned about different exercises that they could do to work different parts of the body to improve their strength. They also watched a video about the different places that they could practice PT such as at schools with veterans.

In the Pharmacy the GGs learned what pharmacists do and they toured the CVS laboratory. They saw how drugs are prescribed and approximately how many different types of drugs there are currently on the market.

In the Analyzing session they practiced testing urine (actually Mountain Dew in this case), and they learned how to use test strips that test for diabetes. Here they got a chance to wear lab coats and lab goggles and learn about lab safety procedures.

Lastly, in the Physician Assistant (PA) session, the GGs learned what PAs do and they practiced their knowledge on a sample case about a man who didn't know what was causing him to have certain symptoms. After learning the symptoms of a stroke, the GGs were able to diagnose this man. They also heard a real heartbeat in order to monitor heart rate and use a stethoscope.

In each workshop there was a real doctor and WSU students studying those respected professions to assist the GGs in their learning.

Just a reminder: GO-GIRL will be meeting at its usual time on Saturday, April 2nd: 9:30am-3:00pm in the College of Education.

Please note that the street/metered parking on WSU's campus is free on the weekends.

We're looking forward to seeing everyone again this weekend! :)

GO-GIRL 2011 Day 4

Saturday, February 19, 2011

This was a great day for learning about research! Our GO-GIRLs had an action-packed morning spent in our Wayne State University Undergraduate Library (commonly known around these parts as the UGL). Here, our amazing librarian friends used their computer labs and extensive knowledge to show us some great ways to research online. We now know what can be considered good vs. bad research. We got a great introduction to MeL, the Michigan eLibrary website that has boundless information of all sorts and is open to all of us as residents! By just visiting mel.org, we have an entire world of databases and online resources available to us-this is a great place to visit for our school projects! Even parents will find it easy to use ;) Then we stopped by the Towers Dormitory for a true college-style buffet lunch. We could have anything from veggie pizza, to chicken strips & french fries, the salad bar and soft serve ice cream...it was awesome! Then our afternoon was spent in our teams back in the College of Ed. working on our research project surveys. We're gradually working on refining our topics and questions, we can't wait to share our surveys with all of our family and friends so keep an eye out for them soon!

We'll miss our week off of GO-GIRL as we take a break next weekend, February 26th, but we'll look forward to picking up where we left off the following Saturday, March 5th. There's a Parent Cafe on March 5th as well so we hope that all our parents can join us as well :)

GO-GIRL 2011 Day 1

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Day 1 down, 9 to go! And we're off to a running start! The mentors were energetically awaiting the GGs' arrival at the bus stop drop-off point with pom-poms and signs to greet the girls and their parents. GO-GIRLs started out the day with our version of BINGO, Personality BINGO. Along with the granola bars and juice, this really got us all going! Then GGs broke into pairs or threes within their teams and completed an "All About Us" venn diagram, comparing and contrasting themselves with their partner. After the mentors modeled their introductions, the GGs had an opportunity to introduce their partner to the rest of the group. It was a jam-packed morning, everyone was quite hungry by the time lunch rolled around! Lunch was served in the WSU Student Center, it was sandwiches, potato salad, a cookie, and soda. Our first session also included a GO-GIRL-themed Power Point Presentation as well as a fun round of GO-GIRL Jeopardy, where GO-GIRLs had a chance to learn all about the GO-GIRL program. We found out these GGs are very competitive! Everyone also had a chance to take a survey, similar to one they will create and extend to others as a part of their final project. Overall, today was a great glimpse for the GGs into the GO-GIRL future and a nice chance for the GGs to get to know one another! :)

G^3 Cyber Fall 2010

Saturday, November 6th, 2010

Our second G^3 Cyber was such a smash! The day started out in the WSU Welcome Center with a fun "Find Someone Who..." activity which was actually showing us how data mining works (how Google and other online sites sort our "likes" and "dislikes"). From there we moved to the Computer Science labs in State Hall where we started to dabble in learning the SCRATCH program. Each GG was armed with a cute, purple GO-GIRL wristband flashdrive complete with their individual iPhoto photo, and were all able to take the program and their work home with them for later! Parents met in the morning for a Parent Cafe in the UGL where they discussed career opportunities in Computer Science and explore ways they they can support their daughters as they continue to plan their path to college. Then we enjoyed boxed sandwich lunches and took turns checking out demonstrations by computer science students. The students had taken apart computers and showed us how hard drives worked and they answered our questions about computer science college degrees and jobs. We took tours of the 3D Movie labs in the Woodward Bldg. and finished the day with a fun prize-filled round of Cyber Jeopardy!