Adding Up The Possibilities Spokane, Idaho Girls Participate In Workshops Introducing Them To Careers In Math, Science

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why hundreds of girls at Spokane Falls Community College were having such a good time.

Some got a chance to feel the sensation of being aboard a jet fighter. Others saw a live panther.

All the fuss and fun was about math and science. The sixth- through 12-graders were learning that careers involving numbers or science aren’t boring.

And they aren’t just for boys.

“Girls often, somehow, get led away from math and science classes,” said Debbie Wilson, one of the organizers of Saturday’s workshop, called “Expanding Your Horizons in Science and Mathematics.” The annual workshops - sponsored nationwide by the Math/Science Network - have been held here regularly for 10 years, but the first happened in 1978. This year, students came from Kennewick and Lewiston.

“The idea is for them to keep their horizons wide, not to limit themselves,” Wilson said.

Hearing about math and science is one thing. Making sense of them is another. In this case, the equation was simple: Kids got a list of 68 different classes to pick from, all presented by women working in a math- or science-related job. Students could learn about being anything from an athletic trainer to a zoologist.

Between classes, girls milled around an exhibit area in SFCC’s math building.

At the Air Force booth, 1st Lt. Liesl Raderer was giving students a quick glimpse of what it was like to be a fighter pilot locked in a tailspin. “Y’all want to try spinning in the chair?” she asked.

Kee-Kee Jordan, a sixth-grader from Franklin Elementary, said she’d take it for a test flight. She ducked her head down, closing her eyes. Raderer spun her around and around by the chair’s circular handrail.

The girls were supposed to tell when they thought they had quit spinning. The thing was, they were always wrong. Raderer finally stopped Kee-Kee for real, and asked her to open her eyes.

Her eyes wildly darted back and forth on their own. The exercise teaches pilots to always trust their instruments, not their senses.

Kee-Kee sat for a minute to regain hers. “If I would have stood up right away, I would have fallen down.”

Not far from there, Machelle York was hard to miss. Her bright yellow hardhat and brown overalls made her stand out. York is an electrician. From behind a table covered with wire strippers and other gear, she told students that when applied to a trade, math isn’t nearly as tough as it seems when it’s scrawled on a blackboard.

Holly Reiter and Heather Rex, eighth-graders at Deer Park Junior High, were checking out the Gonzaga University engineering booth. Professor Barbara Hordemann explained that only 18 percent of engineers are women.

The girls decided their favorite class that day, though, was zoology. They got to see a real black panther. “It was like jumping around and stuff,” Heather said.

They weren’t sure what they wanted to pursue in college, but both thought a biology-related job sounded good.

Debbie Tousley, a ninth-grader from Lewiston, knew exactly what she wanted to do. At the University of Idaho booth, she announced she wanted to be a doctor.

And Saturday’s classes made her all the more confident she would pull it off.

“I think it’s cool. I’ve never been to anything like this before,” she said. “The whole thing is partially to make us feel we’re able to do it.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo