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!

Cisco invites girls to create an App!

​In Support of Girls in ICT day on April 25th Cisco Belgium is partnering with the European Commission, European Parliament and ITU on the Girls in ICT Day campaign, to help develop the future ICT workforce by encouraging Girls to explore ICT as career choices. Our Girls in ICT event has 2 parts: - On the 24th April we will host a hands-on ICT exploration day at our Cisco Campus in Diegem for 50 girls, more details here. http://www.netacadevents.com/europe/event/64/girls-in-ict-day-2013/ -

On 25th April Cisco will accompany 5 girls to the European Parliament Girls in ICT celebration, including a VIP visit to the Parliament and meetings with European Commissioner. In order to choose the 5 girls to attend the VIP visit we are running an App Design Competition from 8th March to 1st April. No prior IT experience is necessary, you just need to produce a conceptual design for an App for a mobile device. The best 5 entries will win, and from these 5 an ultimate sole winner will be chosen to have their app turned into a real app by our cisco techies.

g4g at the ESSS!

greenlight for girls is very proud to have been part of the 10th European School Science Symposium, that happened in Laeken, at the European School Brussels IV.

The European School Science Symposium was a 2-day competition between students of European Schools from many countries, who presented very interesting scientific projects, such as a voice-activated dog jumping from its kennel, the nitrates and nitrites in cooked ham and how music students and bilingual students are better at multitasking (so, great news for the European School pupils, as they speak multiple languages!), among others.

We were there to engage students into some cool experiments – the daisy experiment, our specialty, the magic milk and the lava lamp – to show them that science is fun and that they can learn about many “mysteries of nature” just by trying some simple tricks.

Despite the heavy snow that fell in Brussels during the second day, we had an amazing time in the Science Symposium, as we could engage and entertain some very curious students (girls and boys) eager to see magic happening with the daisies, the milk and the lava lamp.  We also got to meet teachers of European Schools from different countries, which helped us to spread the message of greenlight for girls to adults whose work is to be role models for children and teenagers.

We would like to thank  Andrew McCalister, a teacher from the European School in Laeken who helped us with everything we needed in order to have a great event.

Now, we can’t wait for the Science Symposium 2014!

​Mariana Alencar 

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!

“Albert Einstein just signed my lab coat!”, exclaimed a Brussels greenlight girl

The 3rd g4g day in Brussels was held in the International School of Brussels on Saturday the 13th of October. 

gfg@Brussels 2012

The day began with 250 girls yelling “science is fun” at the top of their lungs.  “This is one of our core objectives,” explains Melissa Rancourt, Founder of greenlight for girls, “we bring science to life in hands-on, fun activities that engages children to be curious and think about their future.”

Albert Einstein, who made a special appearance at ISB, addressed the students, “looking out at all of you today – our future scientists, technologists, engineers and mathematicians – I do believe I see a compassionate future ahead of us.”

Greenlight for girls launches in a new country! On to Brazil!

Just less than 2 years since our first event, greenlight for girls is thrilled to announce that we are launching our activities in Brazil.  Now working on 5 continents, we are lucky to be working with over 700 volunteers world-wide and have reached more than 3,500 girls.  Ouro Branco is our first stop in Brazil.  Join us for our events during the entire week of 24 September 2012.

The week begins with our signature event taking place over 2 days in Minas Gerais at the Universidade Federal de São João Del – Rei following with greenlight for girls events in the classroom of local schools throughout the week.  We would like to thank our amazing contributors who are getting ready for our big events – our g4g Brazil Country Manager and g4g country team of physicists and scientists, all our volunteers & workshop leaders and the incredible organisations who are sponsoring us.  Big thanks to the Universidade Federal de São João Del – Rei, CAPES (Coordination for the improvement of higher education personnel) and theFAPEMIG agency (Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Minas Gerais).