KGS event at D-BAUG
Kangaroo Goes Science Day 2023 took place at ETH Hönggerberg, with 100 teenage girls visiting the campus. D-BAUG contributed in many ways to the event.
On June 8th a hundred teenage girls and their parents could be seen on the ETH Hönggerberg campus. It was the annual Kangaroo Goes Science (KGS) Day, an event organized jointly by D-BAUG and D-MATH with support from external page500 Women Scientists Zurich, D-HEST, and many volunteers from D-BAUG, D-MATH, D-MAVT, D-PHYS, D-CHAB, and D-MATL.
The teenagers were the top scoring girls from the external pageKangaroo Math Competition that took place in March. They were invited to ETH to celebrate their achievements in math and to learn more about the wonderful world of STEM. The program has been organized every year since 2018. It aims to give the girls and their parents insights into the teaching and research that goes on at ETH, to introduce them to the many female scientists and engineers who are at ETH, and it gives them an opportunity to hear from female students about how they ended up at ETH.
During the morning session a team of female scientists from the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag), affiliated with the Institute of Environmental Engineering (IfU), presented a video about their research on “How does our drinking water stay clean?” In the afternoon the girls visited labs where they engaged in hands-on activities. Meanwhile, their parents went on a campus tour.
This year D-BAUG contributed to the KGS program with the following 3 labs:
- Construction hall lab where the girls built small bridges whose stability was later tested,
- Laboratory of Hydraulics, Hydrology and Glaciology (VAW) lab where the girls experimented with water, creating a step-pool system with stones/blocks in a narrow channel. The stability of their steps was then tested by simulating a flood in the channel.
- In the Stocker Lab (IfU) the girls used microscopes and learned all about microbes.
At the end of the day, during the final apéro that brought the girls and parents together again, the strength of the four bridges that were built by the girls was tested, with a winner being declared.
This event was a great opportunity to present activities at D-BAUG to the girls and perhaps inspire them to one day study Civil or Environmental Engineering. Many of the parents also very much appreciated the opportunity to learn more about ETH.
A big thank you goes out to the lab coordinators Dominik Werne (Construction hall), Katharina Sperger (VAW), and Ela Burmeister (IfU) and to their teams of helpers who dedicated their time to making the labs a great success. Darcy Molnar, Sabine Schirmacher, and Caroline Palla were part of the organizing team that made the event possible.
Further details about the 2023 event can be found in this article and on the KGS website here. The IfU video and lab photos are presented below.
