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University of Wisconsin–Madison
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The Wisconsin Idea in Action

Expanding Your Horizons

Two community members, John Glaeser and Dave Watson, are aquatic life experts and have designed and built "Mini-Aquaria" at various outreach events. The Mini-Aquarium is an aquatic ecosystem tucked inside an empty peanut butter jar. The Wisconsin Fast Plant program learned from their expertise and brought their idea to the Expanding Your Horizons (EYH) program. EYH hosts a one-day conference for middle school girls to explore careers in science. This year's theme was water and each of the approximately 350 attendees made their own Mini-Aquarium and viewed aquatic plants and arthropods under microscopes in between breakout sessions with women scientists from the UW-Madison campus.

Outcomes

About 350 middle school girls that have expressed interest in science were able to meet one another and women scientists from UW-Madison. They also were able to speak with two women (one artist, the other a scientist) that are deep-sea explorers.

Focus Areas

Project Leader

Brooke Norsted
Outreach Specialist

Department/Unit
Geology
School or College
College of Letters & Science

This project was last updated on Sep 12, 2011. Do you have an update for this project? Find out how to contribute.