Girls, Cars, and Science*

For the past two summers, I have run an NSF-funded residential camp for girls ages 14-17. This camp is designed to stimulate girls' interest in science by building on their interest in automobiles. The girls spend half the day in hands-on work with cars at Morrisville State College. The other half of the day is dedicated to laboratory exercises at Colgate University that have been designed to help girls learn the science behind the operation of cars. While it is impossible to assess the long-range impact of this program after only two years, the results seem promising. I will discuss the camp program, with particular emphasis on the laboratory experiments that have been developed, which could easily be incorporated into standard high school or college laboratories.