ExxonMobil representatives visited Readington Middle School on Tuesday, Feb. 19 to encourage girls to "make a difference and change the world" by becoming scientists or engineers. Nineteen eighth-grade Readington students participated in the program.
The eighth graders learned about different careers in science and engineering, recent achievements in engineering, and "cool inventions by women." The ExxonMobil representatives encouraged the girls to talk to their guidance counselors and math and science teachers about future career paths, to get involved with a variety of science fairs and programs, and to surf the web for more information.
The "Introduce a Girl to Engineering" program also included three hands-on experiments. After learning about polymers, the girls added calcium chloride to sodium alginate to make their own "Insta-worms," which are polymer chains similar in appearance to gummy worms. The second experiment was to mix glue and borax together to make polymer balls. The participants then explored flotation and buoyancy by constructing rafts made of straws and aluminum foil, floating them in water, and adding pennies to see how many the rafts would hold before sinking.
ExxonMobil hosts the program to encourage careers in engineering by promoting curiosity among middle school students and to help shrink the gender gap in the field of science, technology, engineering and math.