Thursday (March 6) is the early registration deadline for the 29th annual Expanding Your Horizons conference. This year's conference is April 2 at the University of New Mexico, Los Alamos campus.
Los Alamos National Laboratory is a cosponsor of the conference along with Los Alamos Women in Science and UNM-Los Alamos.
Expanding Your Horizons is designed to introduce girls to a variety of careers that require math and science backgrounds, and to stress the importance of taking math and science classes during high school. Speakers and presenters are women, so the conference provides girls with female role models, said Wendee Brunish of Los Alamos's Geophysics Group, president of Los Alamos Women in Science.
Registration packets were sent to middle and high schools across Northern and Central New Mexico in January, and registration materials also are available from Jutta Kayser at jkayser@lanl.gov or at the Expanding Your Horizons Web page.
The Expanding Your Horizons conference offers two workshops that include hands-on activities related to robotics, cryptography, DNA, and other topics. Participants also meet with female scientists, many who are staff members at the Laboratory, said Lisa Colletti of the Laboratory's Actinide Analytical Chemistry Group.
"Our goal is to expose young women to exciting fields in science and inspire them to consider career paths they may not have known existed before they attended Expanding Your Horizons," said Colletti.
This year's keynote speaker is Abigail Sussman, a wilderness ranger, environmental educator, and writer. Sussman lives in Glacier, Washington, and works on the flanks of the Mount Baker volcano. She has studied diverse regions from the geologically intricate badlands of South Dakota to the temperate rainforest of Alaska.
A teacher conference runs simultaneously with Expanding Your Horizons. Conference speakers will give teachers ideas for including more math and science in school curricula and lesson plans, and for exciting ways to teach science.
For more information about the teacher conference, contact Mary Campbell at bmcampbell@newmexico.com.
Los Alamos National Laboratory, a multidisciplinary research institution engaged in strategic science on behalf of national security, is operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC, a team composed of Bechtel National, the University of California, The Babcock & Wilcox Company, and the Washington Division of URS for the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration.
Los Alamos enhances national security by ensuring the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile, developing technologies to reduce threats from weapons of mass destruction, and solving problems related to energy, environment, infrastructure, health, and global security concerns.