Local girls attend math/science camp at UCSD

FALLBROOK – Local students Cristiana Pineda, Katherine McGraw, Phoebe Andreson and Genevieve Foley from Sullivan Middle School and Madison Modjeski from Potter Jr. High School received scholarships to get a preview of college life while learning that math and science can be fun.

The students attended Tech Trek Science Camp for Girls, a summer program for girls entering eighth grade, sponsored by the American Association of University Women of California (AAUW-CA).

The students stayed on the Thurgood Marshall campus of the University of California, San Diego for a week this past June. They attended core classes taught by credentialed teachers featuring hands-on experiments in binary math, chemistry, college preparation, engineering, robotics and marine biology. Women who are professionals in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) fields were guest speakers.

In addition to the core classes, the girls also went on field trips to Sea Camp in Mission Bay and visited Via Sat in Carlsbad.

For the engineering class, the girls designed, built, and tested bridges in a team competition. AAUW volunteers served as camp directors, camp nurse and dorm moms. Former Tech Trek campers serve as junior counselors.

Local teachers nominated the students to attend Tech Trek and the Fallbrook Branch of AAUW, which provides the funding for the students, made the final selection of campers based upon essays and interviews. The AAUW Fallbrook Branch raised funds for the scholarships from their annual Mother’s Day weekend AAUW Garden Tour and also received $850 from Rally for Children to fully fund one scholarship.

The first Tech Trek was held at Stanford University in 1998. This year there were 10 camps, at eight college campuses across California. Since 1998, Fallbrook AAUW has fundraised $42,650 to send 61 local girls to Tech Trek. To learn more, visit http://www.aauw-techtrek.org and http://www.aauwfallbrookca.org.