About Project Pleiades

Women make up less than  10% of the physicists across the U.S. NCSU has more women than average in its graduate physics program. We are all in very different fields of research --

• Astronomy -- Kristy Dyer
• Physics Education -- Melissa Dancy
• Nuclear Physics, Science Education -- Kelley Holzknecht
• Material Science  -- Kim Bell, Lucymarie Mantese (including pre-law Ginger Edwards),
• X-ray Crystallography, Friction Studies -- Tonya Coffey

Physics is often seen as a masculine field, but the women in the physics department really enjoys what we do -- we find the science we do exciting and fun. Many things discourage girls from going into nontraditional fields and we felt it was important to reach out to girls and show what could be done.

 We decided that we wanted girls to experience the fun, research side of physics and see role models  (us!) of women doing science. We wanted to target girls just before and during middle school. Research on development has found that the girls perform as well or better than boys in both science and math, until middle school, when many decided that academic achievement, or interest in science is not "cool". We had already done several physics presentations for "Expanding Your Horizons" (a one day conference for 7th grade girls) and we wanted to do something ongoing, once a month, where we could work with girls, and then send them home with activities so that it was more than a one shot deal -- we wanted to infuse a little science into their lives, while they were still open to that.

The Girl Scouts were the solution to the problems of overhead -- It relieved us of recruiting,  transportation and permission slips. Plans to do a math badge, physics badge and an astronomy badge, coalesced into just an astronomy badge (Did you know there is no Girl Scout Physics Badge, at any level?). The Junior "Sky Search" Badge fit in perfectly -- while only one of us (Kristy Dyer) had Astronomy experience, all the graduate student women were interested in learning about astronomy, and we make use of a wonderful resource --  NCSU's Astronomy Lab at a dark sky location, used to teach college astronomy courses.

We asked the department for support, to purchase supplies and refreshments, and they agreed and encouraged us to apply for grant money. Along with two NCSU professors, Kelley Holzknecht, Melissa Dancy and Kristy Dyer applied for a grant. Project Pleiades is now funded through a 1 year NASA - ASTRO grant. Kelley Holzknecht administers the program.

We designed the program around astronomy tools that could be taken home and used again -- Edmund Scientifics's Star & Planet Locator, Sky & Telescopes Sky Gazers Almanac and a simple diffraction grating that works like a prism. Around these three take-home tools we build a program that taught how to use them, gave the girls hands on experience with a telescope, and satisfied many of the requirements for the Sky Search Badge. The feedback has been very positive -- the girls learn very quickly and are very excited and leave with a positive impression of astronomy and their own abilities.

All of this is lost however,  if they go home and never do any astronomy again. Without practice people forget, skills can get rusty, and there are other things to do. We wanted this to be a more than a one time fun event. Which is why you are here -- you are an important part of our plan. We want to convince you, as troop leaders and parents, that astronomy is exciting and fun. If you enjoy it, your scouts and daughters will also, and that will open up many new doors for their future.

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