By Julia Wu, Senior Staff Writer
M-BEST is a program designed specifically for girls to enhance their talents and interests in STEM learning. STEM learning stands for science, technology, engineering and math. M-BEST stands for Menlo’s Bridge to engineering, science, and technology for girls. On August 30th Martin Hall was packed with girls and their parents from grades 7 to 12. First, there were activities outside, such as building the tallest structure out of marshmallows and toothpicks, puzzles, and making structures using a note-card to support textbooks. Next, we went into Martin Hall and listened to Dr. Yvonne Cagle, a NASA astronaut. Her speech was phenomenal and we learned about her amazing experience in space. Then we learned from Ms. Limaye and Ms. Joanie Banks Hunt what M-BEST is about and if we think we it would be a good program for us to join.
The first workshop was called Outside Our Orbit. It was held on September 25th, 2010. Our first activity was a balloon activity. A string was attached to the ceiling and the string was looped through a straw. Different sized balloons where then taped onto the straw; once the balloon was released from our hands the force of air from the balloon was pushing the balloon towards the ceiling. Gravity was pushing the balloon down. Since the balloon went up, that showed the force of the air was stronger than gravity. We recorded out data to analyze which shaped balloon had the strongest force. We had two great speakers, Dr. Godfrey, a Menlo student’s father and Dr. Jessica Marquez who works at NASA. Dr. Godfrey talked about Newton’s second law, which is if you have two forces pushing against each other; the greater force will cause one of the objects to accelerate in the other direction. Dr. Jessica Marquez talked about what happens to your body when you are in space. Finally, we headed out to the lawn in front of Stent Hall where Mr. Maine, the 8th grade science teacher, taught us how to put together a rocket and launch it. Overall this was a great workshop that included many styles of learning including visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. It’s important to include all the learning styles so everyone remembers the material and experience well.
