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Given that less than 25 percent of Canadian graduate students in physics are women, Simon Fraser University physicist Sarah Johnson hopes an upcoming workshop will draw girls to the discipline.

Johnson, a senior physics lecturer in SFU Physics and lead organizer of Girls Exploring Physics says the Friday, March 25 workshop has attracted about 35 registrants —girls in grades 9 and 10 — so far.

“They’re from all over the mainland. We’ve even got a group coming from the Sunshine Coast,” says Johnson, who along with SFU physicists Barbara Frisken, Jenifer Thewalt and Pat Mooney will lead the workshop.

Johnson says the initiative, running for a second consecutive year, targets girls in senior high school because “this is about the age when girls become less interested in physics and engineering. A lot of girls take high-school physics but there’s a big drop off in their interest in the discipline when they move into post-secondary education.”

The event-filled day, 11:00 a.m.-3:00 p.m., aims to get girls seeing the light in physics with hands-on-activities, such as Exploring Physics Through Candy and LED’s: Lighting for Efficiency and Drama, and a complimentary lunch.

“In one activity the girls learn how Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) work and why they are more efficient than other types of light bulbs. They also build their own LED flashlight,” says Johnson. “In the candy activity they learn about the physics of molecules in different types of candy, such as chocolate and marshmallows.”

For a schedule of activity times and room locations in the physics department see http://www.physics.sfu.ca/about/outreach/gep.

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