November 6 was a day to remember in all the years in which we have participated in the Techsploration Program. For the first time ever, we’ve participated in our Techsplorer Alumni Conference, remotely, in the safety of our community. Normally, we would have travelled and stayed overnight with our alumni to the main land to participate in this one day conference with other alumni teams from throughout Nova Scotia. This year we had a total of 8 participants take part in our ABHMS chapter of this conference. During this conference our alumni worked together on building two project activities. For the first project activity, alumni had to work together (covid-style) to build an Arctic and Offshore Patrol Ship using foam boards and plastic sheets. They learned how to read authentic technical drawings designed by a team of engineers from Irving Shipbuilding. In the second activity our students put together a wind lift. They experimented with the apparatus and took part in a challenge with other alumni teams in Nova Scotia, to determine which team could lift the most objects in their basket of the wind lift – our team won the challenge with the most objects! We were able to tune into a couple of online round robins, in which role models talked a bit of their careers. There were some challenges navigating through the platform and with technical difficulties of gathering online, so we caught as much as we could. But those challenges that didn’t stop us from making new memories with our Techsplorer sisters. We even got to enjoy ice cream at the end of the event – which is a tradition of Techsploration we just couldn’t break!
Techsploration is an award-winning, Nova Scotia-based not-for-profit that delivers hands-on, mentor-led programming to young women in Grades 9 through 12. The goal of Techsploration is to increase the number of women working in science, engineering, trades, and technology-related occupations by assisting young women from diverse backgrounds to explore a wide range of career options in fields where women are significantly underrepresented.
Click to view photos: Photos from Techsploration 2020