Chatham Girls on Cutting Edge of New Science

For some students, summer is the chance to relax and live the lazy, luxurious life. For 11 Chatham girls, it's the opportunity to keep learning.

Several parents and teachers from the Chatham community collaborated to offer courses in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) to middle school girls.

These fields are some of the most underrepresented for women, and Jason Mariano, a technology teacher at Chatham High School, hopes to create a foundation for these and other girls to enter STEM studies.

"It's the opportunity to build early an interest in a male-dominated field in these girls," Mariano said. Without that early interest, "they might not know about my class until junior year."

Such a situation is not typically the case with boys at Chatham High, such as Calvin Ryan, who recently graduated with the class of 2013. Ryan was a student of Mariano's all four years, and took the lessons he learned in Mariano's class to help in his father's business.

"There was nowhere else for him to turn for this kind of study," Mariano said of Ryan. "He was really into what we do and the kind of technology we do, and he was so good at it. You need kids like that."

Ryan, along with Kristen Stuzynski, Stephanie Viscovich, Yusuf Ismail and Nick Lonstrup, serve as teacher's aides and sometimes as teachers themselves in the Middle School Technological Mini-Camp, the camp's proper name. 

Three-dimensional design and computer-aided design and drafting (CADD) are a prominent feature in the course and lends the girls their self-given nickname: The CADDettes.

Mariano worked with Nabil Mouline and other Chatham parents to offer the class to interested girls. "This successful first experience emboldens us as parent to lobby for a more robust and diverse STEM program at our public middle school," Mouline said. "We thought this was good for these hungry brains, ... for girls who might not otherwise be exposed to this."

One feature of the camp is the use of a 3-D printer from 3DSystems. Alyssa Reichental facilitated the use of the printer for the CADDettes. "If the experience is positive, the parents are committed to lobby/fund for the permanent acquisition of 3-D printers to be used year-round by the middle school program," Mouline said.

The girls use 3-D design software such as Autodesk or Google Sketch-Up to create small items such as stencil cut-outs, seen in the photos, or miniature Eiffel Towers.

App developments for Androids are also part of the camp, a component which was taught by a Chatham parent.

"This is the initiative of parents," Mouline said. "Hopefully it will be incorporated into the curriculum of Chatham High School and Chatham Middle School."