Heritage girls explore tech options at UAH science day

Heritage Elementary School students Tamaira Polk, from left, Tramani Osley and Michaela Robinson attended Girls’ Science and Engineering Day at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. (CONTRIBUTED)

Samantha Moore participated at Girls’ Science and Engineering Day at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Moore’s dog Bella joined her for the photo. (CONTRIBUTED)

MADISON – Technical careers edged closer to reality for Heritage Elementary School students at Girls’ Science and Engineering Day at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH).

Targeting girls in grade 3-5, the UAH event spurred interest in STEM-related subjects (science, technology, engineering and math). Delegates browsed exhibits and attended four 40-minute workshops on topics like organisms, space/rockets, doctors/nurses and stars/planets.

Tamaira Polk and Michaela Robinson attended from Sarah Stewart’s fourth-grade class. During experiments, Polk made Play-Doh propellant and lemonade that exploded when she added baking soda.

Polk joined two girls to fly a remote-control airplane to the ceiling. “It was going everywhere,” Polk said. She also learned about a camera that senses temperature of different body areas. “We rubbed an ice cube on our faces and hands; then, the camera showed blue for cold.”

Polk’s favorite experiment involved lemon missiles. “They all exploded except one, and, when we were going inside, it exploded,” she said.

Robinson built crystals and mini-robots and made a new friend named Maddie. “I learned, if you look through a spectrometer at a helium light, it looks different than a regular light,” Robinson said. Her favorite encounter was “tasting how ice cream tastes after it is put in liquid nitrogen.”

Tramani Osley in Katie Scruggs’ fourth-grade classroom also attended. “I’m always excited about science and math,” Osley said. “We learned about flying things for war and made rocket missiles. We also went to a place to see falcons, owls and hawks.”

Osley’s favorite experience was watching people parachute out of planes.

Samantha Moore is in Jessica Dean’s room. Moore learned about nursing, weather and airplanes. “I made magnets out of paper clips, used snap circuitry and learned about cloud formations,” Moore said.

“While animals and insects are my favorite things in science, I want to be a veterinarian. (Science Day) gave me neat ideas, in case I decide to do something else. It was amazing,” Moore said.