Michael Wagner, PhD - US grants

TechGirl will be a fun and dynamically evolving website dedicated to helping middle school girls learn about science and engineering. It is intended to help them develop an appreciation for the beneficial impact of science and engineering on society, and to encourage them to consider possible careeers in science and engineering. This site will contain four major parts:

1) Biographical sketches of women at different stages of their careers, including high school, college, beginning their careers, and at the peak of their careers, including a short bio and a fun/interesting description of a specific event in their career.

2) Advice on developing their careers, from choosing courses and activities in high school to picking a college and major to finally choosing a career.

3) Puzzles/Brainteasers designed to challenge the girls and expose them to different aspects of science and engineering.

4) Engineering Encounters, a role-playing game where the girls simulate how their life could develop through high school, college, and their career. This game will present them with a series of choices, and then they choose a response which then results in different events occurring in their lives.

TechGirl will be developed in close collaboration with two major programs at Arizona State University, the Women in Applied Science and Engineering program and the MInority Engineering Program. The design of TechGirl is based on extensive discussions with middle and high school girls, their teachers and counselors, college girls in WISE, engineers who mentor for WISE, and college students in the OMEP program. Those groups will continue to play a critical role in the development and assessment of TechGirl, so that it is designed as much as possible by girls and women for girls.

This award provides funds to the Merriam-Powell Research Station for construction of new housing units at the Centennial Forest, 19,114 hectares of land set aside by the State of Arizona for research, educational, and outreach on the Colorado Plateau. The construction of the housing and related infrastructure is part of a facilities development project for the recently established Merriam-Powell Research Station (MPRS), a collaboration of Northern Arizona University, Arizona State University, The University of Arizona, and The University of Nevada-Las Vegas. The MPRS supports research in the Greater Grand Canyon-San Francisco Peaks Ecosystem centered along the 3,000 m elevation gradient first characterized by C. Hart Merriam in developing his Life Zone Concept. The Centennial Forest is a primary site within the Southwest Ecological Gradient Network, a latitude/climate gradient extending from Tucson, Arizona to Las Vegas, Nevada. The Forest includes old growth ponderosa pine, pinyon-juniper woodland, and high elevation grasslands. Existing research infrastructure includes elevational gradient plots with weather stations, a 5-year experimental fire history gradient, 20-year regional ponderosa pine common gardens, and replicated 50 ha ponderosa pine old growth restoration plots. Although the region has been used extensively for field research, the Centennial Forest lacks housing and laboratory facilities. Eventually MPRS expects to have 25 visiting scientist/student housing units, in addition to buildings that include wet and dry labs, classrooms and offices, and a greenhouse complex. The housing units are designed to resemble the traditional Navajo Hogan, and will provide low-cost on-site accommodations for visiting scientists and university classes, and thus promote interdisciplinary and interagency collaborations for study of the Greater Grand Canyon-San Francisco Peaks Ecosystem.