On March 24th sophomore and junior girls went on the annual GRRL Tech field trip held at the University of Rhode Island. Organized by Mr. Curtis, Ms. Charpentier, and Mrs. Goulding, students spent the day at URI doing different STEM related workshops.

Upon arrival, students from schools across the state entered Edwards Auditorium and the exhibition began. After hearing from JoAnn Johnson, Manager of Youth and Education Programs at Tech Collective, and Dr. Laura L. Beauvais, Vice Provost of Faculty Affairs at the University of Rhode Island, the students listened to the keynote speaker, Kim Kowal Arcand talk about her career. As the Multimedia Production Coordinator for NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, Arcand meets many other inspirational women in the STEM field. Furthermore, besides her skills in STEM, she often does public speaking, and uses other critical thinking skills often found in English or History careers. 

After the introduction in Edwards Hall, students separated into their  session groups and went to different buildings on the campus. Topics for the workshops included, coding, cosmology, computer science, animal science, and physical computing. During the two workshops,  students met different teachers with experiences in their respective fields that explained their careers and how to do them. The workshops were very hands on with students learning how to code, animate, build toys, and many other skills depending on the session.

When the second session period ended, students returned to Edwards Auditorium and the scholarship winners were announced. Some random, lucky students also won URI water bottles if they had a certain decal under their chair.

At the end of the closing remarks, students received lunches and parting gifts such as gym bags and bracelets while teachers received mugs.