Bedford Team Places First in 2014 Women of Science Competition

Submitted by Bedford Women of Science

Bedford High School (BHS) hosted the 12^th Annual Women of Science competition on Saturday, December 13, 2014 sponsored by the EMD Millipore Giving Program and Thermo Fisher Scientific, with support University of Massachusetts Lowell and Bedford Public Schools.

A team of senior class women from BHS — Madeline Allen, Gina Han, and Rebecca Reubenstein — won the competition with the best average over the four events; each student earned a $750 scholarship.  A team from Boston Latin School took second place, with each student earning $500 scholarships.  A team from Chelmsford High School third place overall and earned $250 scholarships.   Another team from Bedford placed 7^th in the overall competition.

BHS faculty members Liana Heldman and Michael Griffin have provided the leadership and coordination for this event each year. A record number of 45 teams from 24 different schools in three different states competed in the 2014 event, which celebrates women in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math, and encourages high school students to pursue careers in these areas.

The idea of creating a competition for female students only is guided by the interest to have more women enter science related fields. We are hoping the day will celebrate Women in Science and spawn interest in science related fields. In addition to the competition, several professionals in the science and technology fields sat with the participants at lunch and held conversations about the many opportunities that there are for women in the fields of engineering, physics, and microbiology.

Each team consisted of three high school junior and senior women who competed in four different events throughout the day.

• The “Crash the Wall” event required competitors to build a projectile device that would launch a stress-ball at targets placed at various heights along a cinder-block wall.  Teams built devices prior to the competition, but shot at their targets on the day of the competition. Teams were scored based on how many “men” they could knock off the wall using the fewest balls.
• In the “Cryptography” event, teams decoded messages that were written in various codes, such as a Caesar cipher and 3-rail cipher, and solved puzzles and brainteasers.  Teams raced against the clock to break these codes, as time was used as the tiebreaker.
• “Anything Goes” involved ten rotating stations in which teams had only four minutes to perform various tasks and calculations, such as determining the number of atoms in a sample of aluminum, finding the length of a pendulum using only a stopwatch, matching famous Women of Science to their achievements, and identifying obsure pieces of lab equipment.
• The final event, “Mystery Engineering,” gave teams 45 minutes to determine the mass of two unknowns using known masses, some rice, a graduated cylinder, a ruler, and a lever.  Many teams used a volume of rice to estimate the unknown masses; others used their knowledge of torque to place the unknown masses different distances along the lever.

Testimonials from the event’s volunteer speakers:

•  “I very much enjoyed the “Anything Goes” sessions and was so inspired by the young women and their spirit.  I think it is amazing what you and your colleagues put together for these students; I wish I had the same opportunities in High School. I’m sorry I had to leave as well; I didn’t want the lunch to end!”
•  “Indeed, I had a great time at the event, I enjoyed very much talking with the students…I think the organization of the lunch was great and the students had plenty of questions, thus, the time went by very quickly.”