Awesome, inspiring, outstanding and captivating were some of the words that 128 local girls used to describe their experience during a STEM-ING event at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, May 3.

STEM-ING, or Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics — Inspiring the Next Generation, is a local outreach program for middle school girls dedicated to heightening  the awareness of these subjects and their related careers.

“At this age, they are just starting to find themselves and decide what they really want to do when they grow up,” said Rear Adm. CJ Jaynes, program executive officer for Air Anti-Submarine Warfare, Assault and Special Mission Programs (PEO(A)). “This is a perfect age to broaden their horizons, let them see what options are out there for their careers and to have them think about education-related topics that, typically, young girls are not thinking about.“

Nine NAVAIR employees from Naval Air Station Patuxent River spent the last 10 months planning the event, which included a Wonder Women panel session wherein six female professionals shared their journey into STEM careers and 14 hands-on workshops on various topics ranging from solving a “crime” with forensic science to engineering a building out of pasta.

Designed to bring STEM concepts to life, the workshop activities challenged the girls to use their intelligence and ingenuity to solve problems and demonstrated how science is present in the things they do and see every day.

At “Houston, We Have a Problem,” students designed and built capsules to protect eggs through free fall and impact. Students made their own lip gloss in the “Beauty of Science” workshop as they learned to leverage chemical properties and selected ingredients to create useful mixtures.

“We just did a rock climbing activity and learned how science [and friction] affects that, and how [friction] can affect how high and where you go,” said Mackenzie Dinopoulos, a student at Esperanza Middle School in California, Maryland. “I didn’t realize that friction was something that happened every day; that when we are walking, it is taking place.”

Parents were pleased with the event, expressing their appreciation to the STEM-ING volunteers as well