Passport to Discovery: STEM Girl Day Adventures with the Oden Institute

Huddled into jackets and under umbrellas, over 10,000 elementary and middle school students flocked to The University of Texas at Austin’s campus on Saturday, Feb. 22, 2025, for Women in STEM’s 24th annual STEM Girl Day. The event is a playground of hands on activities, demonstrations, and exhibits that serve to inspire the next generation of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) learners, and was a perfect way to spend a chilly, rainy day.

Among the maze of bustling classrooms and interactive stations, the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences curated five unique events, plus an open house in the Texas Advanced Computing Center's (TACC) Visualization Lab, all of which offered students a glimpse into the ever-expanding world of computational technology. Students began their adventures through the Oden Institute’s Girl Day experience with a passport guidebook in hand, collecting stamps as they journeyed across campus – flying planes, reading MRIs, and exploring the arctic along the way. 

Passport Stamp 1: Paper Plane Path Prediction Party!

A large lecture hall in the basement of the Robert C. Welch Building echoed with gleeful shouts as paper airplanes glided across the room. Led by the Willcox Research Group, the plane path party began as students built their airplanes using pre-cut models. Customization followed, using markers and stickers galore. 

Students learned that the location of the center of mass was the most important factor when attempting to optimize the flight of a glider, and were able to add and remove masses from different locations on their planes in an effort to optimize their flight. Simulation data lit up the projector screens behind the flightpath as students' creations whizzed through their targets, watching computational modelling in real time. 

“The kids definitely had fun with this,” commented Oden Institute student Sebastian Henao-Garcia. “It was awesome to watch them decorate their planes and have such a hands-on learning experience that got them excited about science.” Henao-Garcia, a student in the Oden Institute's Computational Science, Engineering and Mathematics (CSEM) Ph.D. program, was one of more than 40 volunteers that particpated in Oden Institute activity stations. 

Passport Stamp 2: The Hurricane Game!

When you put crayons, wind, waves, and rainfall in a classroom together, you get a perfect storm of discovery – demonstrating to young learners the origins of a hurricane. Organized by the Computational Hydraulics Group, the event explored factors such as the Coriolis Effect, compound flooding, and the impact of pressure gradients. 

As attendees worked with postdoctoral students and research scientists, parents and caregivers were able to explore the implications of the Computational Hydraulics Group’s research. Amber, a mother accompanying her son and daughter, marveled at how much they were learning together. “The kids are having a great time, and it’s so wonderful to see what climate research looks like in action,” she said. 

Passport Stamp 3: Inside Out: Discovering Health with Imaging

Graduate students from the Oden Institute’s Center for Computational Oncology dressed in costumes from Pixar's movie, Inside Out: Anger, Joy, Sadness, Disgust, and Fear, embracing their activity theme, Inside Out. The students led attendees through a myriad of activities blending healthcare with computational technology.

While younger students played memory matching games, pairing MRI and X-Ray images of various body parts with cartoon representations, middle schoolers were able to work 1:1 with graduate students, exploring medical imaging case studies and coding projects. 

“I kinda want to be a doctor when I’m older, so it was really cool to see this side of it,” shared Shreya, a 7th grade student. “My little sister really had fun with the matching game too!” 

Passport Stamp 4: Create Your Own Robot Hand!

With the creativity of engineers and the curiosity of scientists, students built their own robotic hands using simple materials like paper cutouts, straws, and string. The straws served as the bones, while the breaks in the straws formed the joints, allowing fingers to bend and flex. By pulling on the string tendons, students watched their robotic hands mimic the movements of a real human hand.

“It's like seeing how my own fingers work!” exclaimed Arhaan, an 8th grader, as he tested his creation. Graduate students from the Center for Autonomy guided the kids through the engineering principles behind their designs, explaining how robotics and biomechanics intersect. From understanding joint movement to discussing how prosthetic hands are designed, students left with both a new creation and a deeper appreciation for the science of motion.

Passport Stamp 5: Into the Unknown - Discovering the Arctic Ocean in a Glass!

Glasses of ice-water sparkled with bright blues, reds, and greens as they lined the tables of the Computational Research in Ice an Ocean Systems (CRIOS) Group’s display. Students explored the effects of ocean salinity on ice melt as they added salt to tap water holding brightly dyed ice cubes. As they watched a tangible representation of the impact of saltwater density on our polar ice caps, students were also invited to create their own maps of the impact of warming across the globe. 

“We encouraged the students to make their own color gradients to highlight global warming on their maps,” said senior research scientist  An Nguyen. “Today, data visualization is everything, and it’s so critical to make scientific images that are as understandable as possible. This activity put the kids in the driver’s seat of creating scientific stories,” she said. 

As participants emerged from the Oden Institute’s STEM Girl Day adventures, their filled passports represented the knowledge they gained, and the sense of empowerment and curiosity they built. With new skills and a spark of inspiration, they left campus knowing that the possibilities in STEM are as boundless as their imaginations.

UT Austin’s national award-winning STEM Girl Day recruitment program, presented by Women in STEM (WiSTEM), gives K-8th graders a chance to explore STEM through grade-appropriate, hands-on activities hosted by scientists, engineers, astronomers, mathematicians and other STEM enthusiasts from student organizations, research centers, corporate partners and community organizations. For more information about the program, which is open to all genders, follow this link.