On Friday, April 29, about 65 junior high girls joined us at UPEI for the 3rd annual Girls Get WISE Science Retreat. WISE stands for Women in Science and Engineering which is a movement to encourage girls to consider careers in areas of science and engineering which are traditionally male-dominated. Girls participated in group activities, workshops in Chemistry, Engineering, and Physics, and had the opportunity to talk with women who are working in or studying science and engineering.

2016 Girls Get WISE participants: junior high girls, volunteers, workshop leaders, and mentors.

A simple spectroscope made from a cardboard tube. The clear “window” on the end is a stripped-down piece of CD.

For the Physics workshop this year, we decided to do an astronomy-themed activity. The girls built simple spectroscopes from cardboard and old CDs and then looked at different light sources to see their spectra. It was fitting that the girls got to learn about spectroscopy, as pioneering work on that topic was done by some of the first women to work in astronomy.

While the girls were building their  spectroscopes, they had an opportunity to go outside to have a safe look at the Sun through our solar telescope. We were lucky to have a beautiful sunny day with very few clouds in the sky, so everyone got to have a look at the Sun’s surface and see some sunspots and prominences.

A beautiful clear sunny sky for solar viewing during the WISE physics workshops.

You can build your own spectroscope at home using our instructions and then look at different light bulbs, LEDs, and reflected sunlight to see the different spectra that they produce. It’s not safe to look directly at the Sun using your spectroscope, but if you put some white paper in a sunny patch, you can look at that reflected light safely . And if you’d like to get a safe look at the surface of the Sun, come to one of our public solar viewings sometime.