Author Archives: Kelsey

About Kelsey

Kelsey started working at the Museum through Xplorations summer camp, and this fall she started working as a programs facilitator. She is a presenter for several outreach programs, assists with overnight programs, and assists with education collections during summer camp. Her favorite dinosaur is a Triceratops found at HMNS Sugar Land. The Triceratops is also named "Kelsey."

Girls Exploring Math and Science 2015

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Last Saturday, we celebrated our 10th year of hosting Girls Exploring Math and Science (GEMS) at HMNS! Despite the questionable weather, we had a spectacular turnout! From underwater robots to photobooths, we had it all.

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The GEMS event includes two sections – community booths and student booths. Our community booths are hosted by local STEM organizations. They present STEM activities or demonstrations to young students and they talk about how they got their STEM careers. This year, the Subsea Tiebeck Foundation brought an exhibit called SEATIGER. It’s a giant tank containing an underwater ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle) for students to learn about how STEM is involved with the offshore and subsea industries. GEMS also included fault line activities, polymer demonstrations, and astronaut dexterity challenges from some of our other community booths!

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In addition, GEMS hosts student booths. As a student booth, students present a project relating to science, technology, engineering or math to peers as well as adults. Every year we award the top three projects with prize money for their school, club or Girl Scout troop. This year we had some exceptional projects! Third place went to Girl Scout Troop 17492 for their project, The Human Battery. Like true scientists, these fourth grade girls had to reconstruct their experiment after their first attempt failed. Luckily, they reconstructed their experiment, and found an alternative way to power a battery using lemons instead! The second place team was another group of Girl Scouts, Troop 126005. Their project, POP! The Power of Programming, examined the intricacies of computer programming and each of the girls designed their own small program too! First place went to Jersey Voltage, the Jersey Village High School Robotics team. The team built a robot that could throw a ball, and they demonstrated their robots talent by playing catch with some GEMS participants! They plan to use their winnings to take their robot to a robotics competition in Texas or Louisiana!

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We hope that everyone that joined us at GEMS 2015 had a great time! If you took some photos in our smilebooth, you can see them here!

Join us at GEMS next year on Saturday, February 20, 2016!!

Wonder Women of STEM: Dr. Mae Jemison, the first African-American female astronaut.

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Editor’s Note: This post is the fourth in a series featuring influential women from STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) fields in the lead up to HMNS’ annual GEMS (Girls Exploring Math and Science) event, February 21, 2015. Click here to get involved!

 

We’ve seen some amazing women in STEM, but none are quite so out of this world as Dr. Mae Jemison, the first African-American female astronaut. In 1992, she orbited the earth for over a week on the space shuttle Endeavor and logged over 190 hours in space!

Dr. Jemison had numerous accomplishments in addition to her space travel. She began her college career at age 16 by attending Stanford University on scholarship. Within 4 years, she graduated with a BS in Chemical Engineering and a BA in African and African-American Studies from Stanford University. She continued her studies at Cornell University where she received her doctorate degree in medicine. A few years later, she proceeded to volunteer for over two years with the Peace Corps in Western Africa where she taught health education and contributed to research concerning the Hepatitis B vaccination among others.

After all of her volunteer work, Jemison applied to be part of the NASA Space Program and was one of 15 people selected out of 2000 to join the Space Program in 1987. She joined her first orbiting mission in 1992 with Endeavor. While aboard Endeavor, she worked with other astronauts on bone cell research along with other experiments and investigations. Although her time in space was short, she was able to claim the title of first female African-American in space. In May of 1993, Dr. Jemison left NASA to teach at Dartmouth College and continue to educate future generations.

In addition to her space travels, Dr. Jemison has a list of accomplishments that would knock your socks off. She can speak four languages, wrote her own book called “Find Where the Wind Goes,” was on the cover of JET Magazine, hosted the World of Wonders TV show, and was voted one of the 50 Most Beautiful People according to People Magazine. If that’s not enough, she’s also got a sense of humor. She talks about her experiences in Brazil for the 20th anniversary of the Apollo missions and she comments, “Wow!! Y’all need to be glad I didn’t go to Brazil before NASA or I’d still be there doing development work and the Samba on the beach.” Like I said, impressive!

Space was not the first major accomplishment for Dr. Mae Jemison, and it certainly won’t be her last. She continues to expand interest in science education through her foundation, The Dorothy Jemison Foundation for Excellence. She created The Earth We Share, international science camp for students as well as a program to encourage hands-on, science education through Teachers.

If you are inspired by women such as Dr. Mae Jemison, then you’ll enjoy meeting some of the local ladies of STEM at GEMS this weekend. Come to HMNS between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. to learn more about science, technology, engineering and math! We’ll even have representatives from NASA!

Educator How-To: Make a Balancing Dipsy!

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diplodocusFor those of you who have been going to HMNS for years, you may have noticed that we’ve been missing a rather large lady from our Hall of Paleontology. Our Diplodocus, “Dipsy”, was Houston’s first dinosaur unveiled in 1975 and she was de-installed in September 2013. This was her first trip from home for a well-deserved cleaning. Luckily, she’s due back at HMNS in March! We’re so excited for her to be back that we’ve even put her on our overnight shirts! In honor of her return, we’ve dedicated this month’s Educator How-to to this dynamic Diplodocus.

Dipsy can teach us quite a few things about balance! When we first installed Dispy in 1975, she was a tail dragging dino as you can see in the photo below. With further studies, they realized that large dinosaurs like the Diplodocus couldn’t possibly walk with their tail on the ground. Think of all the friction and weight! Instead, they realized that they must have used their tail as a counterbalance for their long neck and head like you can see in the illustration below. To demonstrate how Dipsy uses balance, we are going to make a balancing Dipsy!

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Dispy’s early days at HMNS had her dragging her tail on the ground.

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Illustration of Dipsy using her tail for balance on our HMNS Overnight shirts.

How to make your own Balancing Dipsy:

1. Print a copy of Dipsy on cardstock

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2. Color your Dipsy (mine’s going on vacation, so I’ve got her wearing a festive Hawaiian shirt)

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3. Cut out your Dipsy along the black lines.

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4. If you try to balance her now, you may notice that she’s not very good at it. We need to add weight to correct her center of mass.

5. In this case we are going to use paperclips! Add paperclips to Dipsy to get her to balance. Since she is a very large and currently top-heavy dinosaur, we need to add lots of weight down low to keep her balanced. I’ve added three paperclips per foot.

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6. If your students would like more of a challenge, have the students adjust the position of the paperclips and watch as her balancing point changes. See if they can get her to balance using different sized paperclips or changing the location of the paperclips. 

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The point on which something balances is in line with its center of mass. The object will be most stable (and easier to balance) if the center of mass is below the balancing point instead of above it. For regularly shaped objects like a rectangular sheet of paper the center of mass is the geometric center of the object, but it depends on the shape of the object and how the weight is distributed (imagine adding a bunch of paperclips to one side of an index card and then balancing it horizontally on a pencil eraser – the center of mass and the balancing point will be closer to one edge now).

For our Balancing Dipsy, the object is an unusual shape and has unusual weight distribution. We needed to add weights to our Balancing Dipsy to make her center of mass below where we place our finger when she is upright. With enough weight we can get Dipsy to balance on our finger or a pencil!

Dipsy is just one of many dinosaurs that use their tails to balance. On your next field trip to HMNS, you can see several dinosaurs in the Morian Hall of Paleontology that have their tails sticking out for balance. See if you can find them all! While you’re here, you can bring your own Balancing Dipsy to see our very Dipsy the Diplodocus. She’ll be back this March!

Wonder Women of STEM: Beatrice Alice Hicks, a woman ahead of her time

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Editor’s Note: This post is the third in a series featuring influential women from STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) fields in the lead up to HMNS’ annual GEMS (Girls Exploring Math and Science) event, February 21, 2015. Click here to get involved! 

Born in 1919 in Orange, New Jersey, Beatrice Alice Hicks was a woman ahead of her time. In the course of her life, she earned multiple degrees, pioneered the woman’s role in the field of engineering, and co-founded a women’s engineering society.

As a child, she was inspired by the construction of the empire state building to pursue a career in engineering. She attained her first degree in chemical engineering from Newark College of Engineering. Shortly afterwards, she became the first woman engineer hired at Western Electric in 1942 where she designed telephone equipment that would later be used for the first long distance phone system. Upon leaving Western Electric, she continued her education at Stevens Institute of Technology and received her master’s degree in physics.

Hicks continued her innovative approach to engineering when she joined her late father’s company as chief engineer. In 1962, Hicks patented a density switch. It monitored the density of a sealed environment and signaled when the density changed. Her invention was integral in the Apollo space missions to the moon! It informed the astronauts if there was a leak in the ship. She created a number of other environmental sensors throughout the duration of her career that were used in additional space missions as well as aircraft development. 

All of Beatrice Hick’s personal accomplishments were extremely impressive, but she wanted to do more. At the time, the United States was in need of more engineers, and Hicks had the perfect solution – women engineers! She felt that women were not being encouraged to study engineering.

In 1951, she and a few female engineers co-founded the Society of Women Engineers (SWE). Their goal was “to inform the public of the availability of qualified women for engineering positions; to foster a favorable attitude in industry for women engineers; and to contribute to their professional advancement.” When SWE started, it had 65 members and it has grown to include over 16,000 women! 

Hicks was elected president of SWE in 1951 and she travelled the country giving speeches and interviews about the role of women in engineering. Encouraging women to pursue a higher education, and serving as a role model for young engineers for generations to come. We hope you will stop by the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) booth this year at GEMS and be inspired by these female engineers! Come see Beatrice Hicks’ legacy and get excited about engineering.

 

HMNS is highlighting females that made contributions to STEM fields leading up to our annual GEMS (Girls Exploring Math and Science) event, February 21, 2015!

Girls Exploring Math and Science (GEMS) is an event that showcases some of the great things girls do with science, technology, engineering and math! Students can present a project on a STEM related subject for the chance to earn prize money for their school.