logo
Thousands of girls explore STEM at CBS Colorado's Girls & Science

Thousands of girls explore STEM at CBS Colorado's Girls & Science

CBS News08-03-2025
About 3,000 girls and their mothers, fathers and brothers descended on the Museum of Nature and Science for the kickoff of Girls & Science. Dozens of businesses, organizations and agencies showed off their STEM missions and careers.
"A project where students build various circuits," said Amanda Rome, Executive Vice President and Chief Customer Officer for Xcel Energy.
True to their mission, Xcel Energy was directing electricity to power lights and fans.
"We are a company of engineers, scientists, technology professionals," Rome explained.
The folks from Ping Identity were making buttons with kids' names encrypted.
"Ping Identity is an identity security company. It's really important for kids to learn how to protect their identity. A lot of times, you'll see kids names on their backpacks and their shirts and so we're teaching them the importance of incripting their name and their identity," said Cayla Curtis, Product Manager with Ping Identity.
Again this year, the CBS Colorado team demonstrated the magic of the weather green screen. Everyone got a chance to be a meteorologist for a minute.
There were computer games about math, friendship bracelets about DNA, and an exercise about kidney filtration.
"I think, one is that career-wise, they can see what all the options are for them. Like is this a science career that they might be interested in? And then also, kidneys are important. It's important to know who they work and why you need to take care of them," said Katie Swanzy, Group Vice President of Value Based Care at DaVita.
Exploring careers and gaining confidence in science, technology, engineering and math, STEM fields is what Girls & Science is all about.
"We need all kinds of people out there in the community starting very young, building these skills because we're going to need them, " Rome explained.
These girls are building skills and having some fun along the way.
The fun continues at the Girls & Science takeover of 2nd Saturday at the CSU Spur in Denver. There will be fun STEM related activities from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Google Has Quietly Been Detecting Earthquakes by Sensing Rumbling in Android Phones For Years
Google Has Quietly Been Detecting Earthquakes by Sensing Rumbling in Android Phones For Years

Yahoo

time5 hours ago

  • Yahoo

Google Has Quietly Been Detecting Earthquakes by Sensing Rumbling in Android Phones For Years

Google has for years been harnessing the power of its Android smartphones to detect and measure tens of thousands of earthquakes. In a new paper published in the journal Science, researchers from the search giant described how they used motion sensors from its two billion-strong network of phones running Android between the years 2021 and 2024 to detect and alert quakes to users in almost 100 countries around the world. Known as "Android Earthquake Alerts" (AEA), this early warning system has uses the smartphones' accelerometers to detect telltale vibrations as they happen and inform residents of quakes in their areas. With its two-tiered severity levels — the weaker "be aware alert" for lower-magnitude quakes that sends typical push notifications, and the more pressing "take action alert" for moderate or extreme shakes that issues a loud beeping alarm that overrides "Do Not Disturb" settings — Google boasts that it has warned of more than 11,000 quakes. While such a system has invariably saved lives, however, AEA is far from flawless. In the case of Turkey's deadly quakes in 2023 that claimed more than 55,000 lives and injured over 100,000 people, the company now admits that it erroneously sent its lower-level notifications to hundreds of thousands of people — a massive failure during one of the deadliest natural disasters in recent history. Both in the Science paper and in a statement to BBC, Google admitted that it only sent 469 "Take Action" alerts during the first of the two earthquakes that struck Turkey and Syria in February 2023, and instead mass-notified half a million people with the "Be Aware" version, the less severe of the two warnings. Because the first earthquake occurred at around 4:15 in the morning, that quieter warning likely went unseen by people who were asleep and had their phones silenced. That discrepancy appears to be the result of bad seismic readings from the phones' sensors. Initially, the system's algorithms estimated that the first quake was between a 4.5 and 4.9 on the moment magnitude scale (MMS), but it was actually a far more serious 7.8. During the second quake, the AEA also underestimated the magnitude, sending only 8,158 "Take Action" alarms and almost four million "Be Aware" alerts. (That shoddy algorithm, the company says, has since been updated.) Until now, Google deflected blame for the system's failure, even after the BBC investigated the AEA in the aftermath of the quakes and found it to be severely lacking. Though this sort of admission is better late than never, it's still concerning that Google took more than two years to admit the system's failures during the Turkey earthquakes. With so many people relying on the tech monolith for life-saving alerts, taking accountability for the AEA's failures is paramount — and that accountability should have been much swifter. More on disasters: Extreme Heat Is Killing Unfathomable Numbers of People Worldwide Solve the daily Crossword

Too Many Scientific ‘Discoveries' Get Discredited
Too Many Scientific ‘Discoveries' Get Discredited

Bloomberg

time9 hours ago

  • Bloomberg

Too Many Scientific ‘Discoveries' Get Discredited

It's not a good look for science when the most hyped, heavily marketed, and supposedly transformative discoveries are later discredited. Among the more spectacular cases were claims that a team of scientists had discovered fossilized Martian life in a meteorite, and that spores found in amber and salt crystals had been revived after lying dormant for millions of years. Last week, the research journal Science finally retracted a headline-grabbing study published in 2010, which claimed scientists had found arsenic-based life. NASA had promoted the discovery as bolstering the case for the existence of extraterrestrials and a new tree of earthly life known as the 'shadow biosphere.'

Salt's "chilling" effect
Salt's "chilling" effect

CBS News

time9 hours ago

  • CBS News

Salt's "chilling" effect

Salt! It is sugar's savory cousin and is mostly thought of as an ingredient in food. It is much more than that, though. Salt is essential to your body's functions. It melts snow and ice in the winter, and you can use it to help cream freeze to make a delicacy sent from the cream! At least that's the way we are going to make ice cream today. You might be thinking to yourself, "salt melts liquids, so why would you need that for ice cream?" Adding salt to water technically does not melt it. It just lowers the freezing temperature of water, which does melt it until you hit that lower temperature. While it lowers the freezing temperature, it actually gets colder too! You heard that right. Adding salt to water makes the water colder, as you can see! That probably seems backwards. Dissolving salt in water requires energy, so that energy is absorbed from the water, causing the temperature to drop. The same goes for salt on ice! The salt dissolves on the ice, dropping the freezing temperature of the ice, but making it colder at the same time. Purdue University says this is an endothermic reaction, or a chemical reaction that occurs with the absorption of heat. We are going to use this knowledge to make our version of one of science's greatest cream! My ice cream maker is a little different. On one side of this ball, you put your ingredients in a compartment. The other side of the ball gets filled up with ice and rock salt, kosher salt, or ice cream salt. That is where our reaction will happen, causing the temperature to drop. To turn this into ice cream, we have to shake and roll, and play with this ball for 25 minutes! The action makes sure the salt is dissolving on the ice, lowering the temperature. It also churns the cream, making sure that large ice crystals don't form. This also allows air inside the freezing cream, helping it to be creamy, rather than rock-hard. It is a lot of work, but the science and ice cream are worth it. Using salt and ice's endothermic reaction was how they made ice cream in the olden days. This ball is just a new take on the classic way to make ice cream.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store