“Science is Amazing”: GeoGirls Explore Mount St. Helens
Twenty-five middle school-age GeoGirls spent five days conducting hands-on research and interacting with female scientists, educators and older students, all while learning about active volcanoes, natural hazards and modern scientific monitoring technologies below the summit of Mount St. Helens.
“It’s an amazing experience having all these women around us who are scientists as well as teaching science to future generations,” said GeoGirl Samantha Garcia-Hernandez. “It’s amazing to just be in a community where everyone loves science.”
From Aug. 4 to 8, 2019, U.S. Geological Survey women scientists, university researchers and Mount St. Helens Institute staff led the science-loving girls from Washington and Oregon in the fifth annual GeoGirls outdoor volcano science program at Mount St. Helens, Washington.
They camped, hiked to field sites and worked on research projects examining volcanic deposits from past eruptions, and toured a 2,000-year-old lava tube. They deployed seismometers and analyzed earthquake data, collected sediment samples and learned about ecological change in the volcano’s blast zone as they explored Mount St. Helens’ Pumice Plain.
The goal of the GeoGirls program is for participants to emerge with a stronger understanding of the volcano in their backyards and to feel confident in choosing careers in science, technology, engineering, math or other related fields. The program is free to student participants thanks to grant funding from the American Association of University Women-Lewis County, EMPOWER Women + Girls Clark County, the Frank L and Arlene G Price Foundation and many private donors who give to the Mount St. Helens Institute, a nonprofit organization focusing on helping people understand and protect the volcano.
Mount St. Helens is the most active volcano in the Cascade Range, and it is the most likely of the contiguous U.S. volcanoes to erupt in the future. The USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory maintains a close watch over Mount St. Helens, along with nine other active volcanoes of the Cascade Range in Washington and Oregon. CVO scientists study the history of volcanoes, develop new tools and ideas to understand volcanic systems, monitor current volcano behavior, assess future impacts and communicate with other government agencies, public officials, emergency response groups, educators and the public regarding activity at the volcano, hazard awareness and preparedness for the next eruption.
More information about the GeoGirls program is available online.
Read more about USGS women in science, in “A snapshot of women of the U.S. Geological Survey in STEM and related careers.”
Get Our News
These items are in the RSS feed format (Really Simple Syndication) based on categories such as topics, locations, and more. You can install and RSS reader browser extension, software, or use a third-party service to receive immediate news updates depending on the feed that you have added. If you click the feed links below, they may look strange because they are simply XML code. An RSS reader can easily read this code and push out a notification to you when something new is posted to our site.