The Girl Scouts of Eastern Massachusetts held their third Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) career expo “Changing the World through STEM” in Framingham, Massachusetts, in March 2015. The goal of the expo is to encourage girls from 6th–12th grade to pursue careers in science and technology.
For the second year, the Society of Toxicology (SOT) was well represented at this event with the presentation of two workshops and a demo table. Pictured at the right are 6th–8th graders with volunteers Supriya Kulkarni and Courtney Horvarth (right and far right).
The first STEM workshop was attended by 14 girls in grades 9–12 and the second workshop by 25 girls in grades 6–8. Over 100 scouts and their families visited the table. The Northeast Chapter of SOT (NESOT) kindly provided the funds to support the activities and giveaways. This STEM career event was led by Courtney Horvath (Novartis) with the help of NESOT volunteers, including Larry Thomas (Celldex), Allen Pierce (Alkermes), Supriya Kulkarni (Yale), Toni Williamson (Amgen), and Sule Karaman.
The workshops consisted of an interactive introduction to toxicology. The students then participated in a concentration demo, “Shark Blood.” Pictured at the left are 9th–12th graders working on "Shark Blood" dilution curves. The majority of the workshop time focused on a dose response activity, “Who Killed Yanni the Yeast.” The students used yeast as a model system to solve a CSI-like mystery.
Yeast was added to test tubes with varying concentrations of “mystery chemicals.” Small balloons 
were attached to the test tubes and the girls measured the circumference of inflated balloons to generate dose response curves. Pictured at the right is volunteer Larry Thomas leading the yeast exercise with grades 9–12 girls.
During the afternoon, Drs. Kulkarni and Karaman led activities at the SOT table that featured a salt water dose response curve (also used at last year’s event). Various handouts and giveaways also were distributed. Overall, it was a resounding success!
I would be happy to share the slide decks, handouts, and protocols with anyone who is interested in running a similar event in your community. These materials also will be available in the SOT K-12 Resource Collection that will be accessible soon. Contact Courtney Horvath via ToXchange for more information.