Petit Family Foundation Women in Science Leadership Award

This award recognizes a woman working in STEM who is a leader in her field, and who makes a significant effort to support other women and encourage girls' interests in STEM. The honoree is selected by the Connecticut Science Center's Women in Science steering committee.

2016 #DaVinciCoder Girls-only Hackathon

If Leonardo da Vinci were alive today, what kind of apps would he create? Why don't YOU tell US! Girls in middle and high school are invited to invent new apps or games that speak to da Vinci's work as a genius inventor and artist.

First Place

Talking To DaVinci
This app will help children and adults learn more about Leonardo da Vinci by letting people of all ages ask da Vinci questions and receive his answers! You can ask questions about him and his life by “texting with” him, and you can also involve your friends by texting AS him. Ask your friends to send the keyword “da Vinci” to your number while you have the app open (case sensitive). The app will answer your friends with a quote from Leonardo.

Runner-up

DaVinci Play
This app allows players to use da Vinci’s machines and designs in trials. It gives people the opportunity to try out da Vinci’s experiments in a variety of mini-games!

Special thanks to Presenting Sponsor First Niagara Foundation, Supporting Sponsor TicketNetwork, and Media Sponsor Teentivity. Additional support provided by the Jackson-Batchelder Family Fund at the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving and the S.A. Johnson Family Fund at the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving. Special thanks to Program Partner Connecticut Computer Science Teachers Association.

Resources

Whether you're a woman or girl in the sciences, or are interested in helping more girls and women enter STEM fields, the links below will help you on your way.

• Girls RISEnet: Girls RISEnet, a partnership between the Miami Science Museum, the Association of Science-Technology Centers, and SECME, Inc., is strengthening the professional capacity of informal science educators to engage and motivate minority girls in grades 6—12 to explore and pursue science and engineering careers.
• Ebony Horsewomen: The mission of the Ebony Horsewomen is to empower youth toward successful lives through the use of horses. The goal is to provide Comprehensive Equine Education with profound benefits of Equine and Animal Assisted Growth and Learning, Equine Assisted Therapy, Horsemanship Training, and academic programming to build leaders, deter destructive behavior, and increase academic achievement.
• Girl Scouts of Connecticut: Girl Scouting builds girls of courage, confidence, and character, who make the world a better place.
• ManyMentors: Through the power of peer mentoring, ManyMentors will inspire, encourage, and support underrepresented middle and high school students’ interest in, pursuit of and attainment of STEM degrees at universities across the country.
• The National Girls Collaborative Project: The National Girls Collaborative Project™ (NGCP) brings together organizations throughout the United States that are committed to informing and encouraging girls to pursue careers in STEM.
• American Association of University Women (AAUW): The American Association of University Women is the nation’s leading voice promoting equity and education for women and girls. Since its founding in 1881, AAUW members have examined and taken positions on the fundamental issues of the day—educational, social, economic, and political.
• National Engineers Week Foundation: Engineers Week celebrates the positive contributions engineers make to society and is a catalyst for outreach across the country to kids and adults alike. Engineers Week is part of many corporate and government cultures and is celebrated on every U.S. engineering college campus.
• SciGirls on PBS: SciGirls is a new show for kids ages 8–12 that showcases bright, curious, real tween girls who put science and engineering to work in their everyday lives. Each half-hour episode follows a different group of middle school girls, whose eagerness to find answers to their questions will inspire your children to explore the world around them and discover that science and technology are everywhere!
• EngineerGirl: The EngineerGirl website is designed to bring national attention to the exciting opportunities that engineering represents for girls and women.
• uheart.wordpress.com/: Updates on health-related research by Dr. Beth Taylor, Director for the Center for Health, Care and Well-Being at the University of Hartford and Director of Exercise Physiology Research at Hartford Hospital.