More than a dozen Schuylerville Middle School girls participated in ‘Girls Go STEM,’ a Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) program held on the SUNY Adirondack campus on May 14. The event, which drew 100 middle school girls from around the region, featured hands-on workshops in a variety of STEM-related disciplines to give girls an opportunity to engage, learn, explore and meet accomplished women in a collegiate setting.

“It was an empowering event that allowed our female students to see the many opportunities for them to pursue a career in STEM,” said science teacher Christen Porpora. “The event featured women who are intricately involved in their fields of study. As a woman in STEM myself, I was excited to see my female students engaged in the lessons being taught and asking meaningful questions.”

The event kicked off with keynote speaker Arlette St. Romain, who serves as Principal and Director of Environmental Due Diligence and Brownfields Investigations at The Chazen Companies. Students then participated in three workshops each, ranging from Coding with Dash Robots to Weather Routing Across the Atlantic and How to Extract DNA.

“The workshops allowed our students to utilize STEM resources not normally available in a middle school classroom,” said technology teacher Mark Belden. “Our students worked with engineers and scientists that showed them the connections between school and professional careers.”

“I learned a lot, but found the Weather Routing workshop most interesting,” said seventh-grader Mary McGloine. “We learned about weather patterns and the teacher was very informative about the subject and how to apply it to the real world.”