Eight students from John Oliver secondary visited NASA, the Kennedy Space Center, the Orlando Science Center in Florida during spring break in the first girls-only science trip from Vancouver.
“I finally got to see what I learn in class in action,” said Grade 12 student Nicole Mamaril. “You sit in class all day learning about all this stuff but you never really know how it applies to real life.”
The trip arose from a suggestion a couple of years ago by a Grade 9 student of physics and chemistry teacher Sangeeta Kauldher to take her students to NASA.
“I kind of just laughed,” Kauldher said. “And I said, actually why don’t I? I thought it would be a good opportunity. I mean around their age is when I was inspired to go into science by a teacher.”
The travellers held an alligator and learned about ecology and animal conservation at Florida’s Everglades. They learned about physics, nanotechnology and robotics and saw the Canadarm at the Kennedy Space Center.
“Being able to have that conversation about how this is fully an international space centre, technology comes from all over the world, including our own country, and this is what we contributed, they were so impressed to see that,” Kauldher said.
The students, most of whom are in Grade 10, experienced a launch simulator, walked the gangplank used for the first missions to the moon and met astronaut Bob Springer.
“I kind of found it interesting, like, how there’re as many astronauts girls [graduating] as there [are] guys” said 15-year-old Simran Puri.
Kauldher, who led the trip despite being on maternity leave, chaperoned with her five-week-old son alongside English teacher Harkiran Aulakh, who said the trip helped her see the world with “science eyes.”
“Rollercoasters, to the boat ride to space shuttle and everything else we were looking at… even the weather,” she said.
The students received a physics lesson about terminal velocity from a university professor and defied gravity with indoor skydiving at iFLY.
“Some were pushed,” Aulakh said. “Whether it was to take care of themselves or if it was to go on the iFLY or a rollercoaster, they were challenged regularly and they got to see how strong they could really be.”
Kauldher said a lot of boys at the school complained about not being permitted to join the trip.
“There’re not a lot of opportunities for girls at our school in science, so we like to just make it for them,” Kauldher said. “We’ll see what we do next year.”
Grade 10 student Asmita Jhanji said keeping the trip exclusive to girls allowed the teenagers to become comfortable and fully participate in every experience.
Kauldher suspects some of the girls may not have been permitted to go if it had been a co-ed venture.
Families paid $2,950 each for their daughters to attend and some students raised money.
Kauldher hopes the science trip will become an annual event, open to Grades 10 to 12 girls across the district.
crossi@vancourier.com
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