Every February, some 30 local high school girls with a scientific bent spend their Saturdays participating in Boston College’s Women in Science and Technology program—listening to lectures, engaging in lab experiments, and taking field trips to area research facilities. Started in 2006 by then-senior Liz O’Day (a former Beckman scholar, now a graduate student in chemical biology at Harvard), the program is taught and managed by undergraduates. Funding for supplies, travel, and lunches comes from the Arts and Sciences dean’s office and the office of the provost. According to Janine Sanderman ’10, organizer, with Courtney McKee ’11, of this year’s curriculum, the high school students “come in fearful about the work; at the end they’re eagerly explaining the experiments to their parents.”
Above, testing the acidity and tar levels of cigarette smoke on February 13 in the Merkert Chemistry Center with students from North Cambridge Catholic High School (in purple smocks), are Laura Barrett ’11 (left) and Jacqueline Valenza ’12 (right).