Greenlight for girls is back at Mol!

After the huge success of our last event at the European School in Mol, Belgium, greenlight for girls was part of the ES Mol Open Day last Saturday, 23th March.

The Open Day is an opportunity for parents and prospective students to visit the school, to get in touch with other students and staff and also to participate in science workshops. So, it was the perfect occasion for us to show them some fun experiments, to present our organisation to children and parents and also to spread the message that “anything is possible!”.

The first part of the event happened in the sports gymnasium, where younger students participated in our “Colourful Science” workshop. The idea was to show them how chemical reactions can be better understood with experiments that use colour as principle. So, we performed our signature colour-changing daisy experiment and, for the first time, the same procedure with white roses. Other activities were the magical lava lamp – ideal to show the different densities and polarities of water and oil – and the red cabbage experiment – which tests PH values of different household products by changing the colour of the cabbage juice. This was the good beginning of a very promising day, as these younger children had lots of fun in our first workshop.

After the activities in the sports gymnasium were finished, we moved our “Colourful Science” to the secondary school building, where our other workshop, “The Big Bang Theory” was already happening inside of a classroom. There, students could participate in two very cool experiments: “Non-Newtonian Fluid”, which showed how sound frequency can alter the state of matter of a cornflour and water solution from liquid to solid; and “Elephant Toothpaste”, an explosion of colourful foam.

Our “Big Bang Theory” workshop was also a very good opportunity for us to start with the first steps of our “Anything is Possible!” campaign.

We also had a lot of fun participating in the ES Mol Open Day. It’s always very gratifying to show children that science is amusing and to know their dreams and expectations for the future. Again, we would like to thank students, parents and teachers for their collaboration with our campaign, as well as teacher Sonia Mohan and director Brian Goggins for making it all possible for us.

See you in 2014, Mol!

Greenlight girls constructed the largest daisy in the world

Where did we find the largest daisy in the world?  At the European School in Mol, Belgium at our greenlight for girls event on 24 November.  More than 200 girls constructed a very large daisy – not only because this flower is the logo of g4g, but also because a daisy reminds us that there is science and math in everything around us.  This video, created by our special JRC European Commission team, shares the special story of the day and the end result of our daisy chain of greenlight girls.

On 24 November 2012 (Saturday) the first ever Greenlight@ESMol Day took place at the European School of Mol. It was a daylong event (8.30 to 17.15 hrs.) promoting science, technology, engineering and mathematics ("STEM") to 11-15 year old girls from the Flanders region.

Our first greenlight for girls day in the Flanders area of Belgium was a huge success.  200+ girls, 100 volunteers and loads of fun science experiments.  The girls attended workshops ranging from the science of slime, learning how real astronauts live in space and eating real astronaut ice cream too, learning the story behind cancer and the importance of our kidneys -  as well as one of the favourites, Chemical Gardening!

From a giant Xperilab bus with physics and chemistry experiments on-the-go to a real fireman truck with all the gear (that we all wore and tried out!), the day was clearly marked by many activities and lots of fun!

Some girls came from far away – some had to leave their home at 6am on a Saturday in order to join us!  They all arrived and left with smiles on their face, experienced the fun in science, made new friends and had the chance to dream about their future.

These girls’ voices were heard at the end of the day.  Not only did they close the programme by sharing with one another what they’ve learned in their sessions, they also shared a very special message to give to greenlight girls around the world.  200 girls yelled (VERY loudly), “ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE!” – their voices reverberating off the cafeteria walls.  We know that our greenlight girls in Africa, US, Brazil, India and the rest of Europe heard them loud and clear.  The message is out – these girls know that their future is full of possibilities.

We would like to thank all our partners EC-JRM-IRMM, SCK-CEN, Janssen Pharmaceutical, VITO for their support and the European School Mol (ESMOL) and its Parents Association for hosting us in their wonderful school!  We send our special thanks to the best project managers we could have had – Ms. Sonia Mohan and Mr. Jeroen Masson – who saw to every aspect of the event and made this a truly special day for everyone.

See you next year Mol!