The American Association of University Women’s (AAUW) annual Expanding Your Horizons conference will be held on Oct. 18 at Centralia College, according to a news release from the AAUW.
Expanding Your Horizons is a half-day science, technology, engineering, arts and math (STEAM) career exploration conference for students in grades 6 through 9, the news release stated.
Dr. Lindsay Schwartz, who attended Expanding Your Horizons years ago as a student and recently won the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), will be giving a presentation.
The award is the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government to scientists and engineers who are beginning their independent research, according to an article by St. Jude Children’s Hospital.
Her presentation at this year’s Expanding Your Horizons is titled Altered Reality and is an experiment to explore how brains adapt to new situations using vision-altering goggles, according to the release.
This will be the 30th year that the Lewis County Chapter of AAUW and the Centralia College TRIO/TS programs have offered Lewis and South Thurston County students a variety of workshops taught by career professionals in STEAM related fields.
Expanding Your Horizons presents a unique opportunity to increase students’ interest in careers in the STEAM fields, foster awareness of the diversity of career opportunities in those fields and engage with people employed in those fields, the release said.
The day begins at 7:45 a.m. and concludes at 11:50 a.m. Attendees at this year’s conference can select two hands-on STEAM career workshops from a list of 22 different workshops. All students will also be able to attend an assembly where representatives from the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry demonstrate experiments on energy conversion, forces, inertia and laws of motion.
This year’s event will also include a separate, optional workshop for parents covering topics including Running Start, how to fund a college or trade school education, and more.
For a full description of available workshops and a registration form, go to tinyurl.com/mur279e9 or call 360 623-8969.
Pre-registration deadline is Oct. 8. Registration fee is $10 per family, and scholarships are available.
