Girls ranging from elementary to high school age from Girl Scouts of the Colonial Coast visited Langley to hear first-hand from Langley women in STEM careers.
NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, was all about girl power Thursday, April 12. Specifically, the power of women and girls in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Girls ranging from elementary to high school age from Girl Scouts of the Colonial Coast visited Langley to hear first-hand from Langley women in STEM careers – nearly all of them former Girl Scouts themselves.
Dr. Kimberley Brush, Langley’s Director of STEM Education, started off the day by asking everyone to “Be curious today.”
She then turned the microphone over to Lisa Ziehmann, Langley’s Associate Director, who presented special Space Science badges actually flown in space on NASA’s Artemis I mission. Jocelynn Garcia (grade 9) and Sophie Burgess (grade 7) are two of the 81 national winners of the “To the Moon and Back” essay contest. The contest challenged girls to imagine themselves in space.
“Langley is the birthplace of women in STEM. The home of the hidden figures. They started here and shaped their career journeys here,” said Kris Brown, the agency’s Deputy Associate Administrator for STEM Engagement. She was referring to women such as Katherine Johnson and Dorothy Vaughan, who worked as Langley human computers beginning in the 1940s and ‘50s.
“I’m excited that we’ve reached girls across the country so they can realize there is a place for them in space and STEM,” she said.
After the badges were presented, the girls got to tour some of Langley’s most iconic facilities. They visited an inflatable habitat for astronauts and the center’s 14-by-22 subsonic wind tunnel, where rockets and aircraft are tested.
The two girls who earned their badges were impressed by what they saw.
“I think it’s really cool because I get to see where the work environments are and where they test things and build stuff,” Burgess, an aspiring engineer, said.
Garcia agreed, adding that she’s planning a STEM career in the medical field.
“I want to be a pediatrician when I get older, so science is a big part of what I do, whether it’s at school or at home. Even cooking is science, so it’s definitely a part of my everyday life,” she said.
The girls also learned that several of most recent class of astronauts were Girl Scouts, and that Christina Hammock Koch, recently selected as one of the four Artemis II astronauts, was also a Girl Scout.
“Be open to possibilities and dream big,” Brown told them. “The universe is literally waiting for you.”
