Middle school girls from around Iowa were wowed by science on campus last Thursday at the first of three “Taking the Road Less Traveled” conferences.

The conferences have been held by the Program for Women in Science and Engineering since 1987, said Stephanie Hamilton, program coordinator for the group.

This fall’s conferences, two for middle school students and a third for high school students, will continue to expose girls to possibilities in science, technology, engineering and math, she said.

“We have presenters who attended the conference as middle schoolers,” Hamilton said of the program’s success.

Meagan Marquardt, graduate in materials science and engineering, told the girls sitting in the Great Hall of the Memorial Union Thursday that she once sat in their places.

Marquardt was at the conference to introduce the keynote speaker, Larry Genalo, professor in materials science and engineering.

Genalo called his presentation “What’s Hot and What’s Not.” He began his presentation with demonstrations using hot materials and then switched to cold materials, such as liquid nitrogen.

“Materials engineers call these polymers,” Genalo said, dropping some items into a cup of liquid nitrogen. “You might call them marshmallows.”

Liquid nitrogen is so cold it freezes marshmallows instantly, Genalo told the girls. He shook the cup and the marshmallows rattled like dice.

Then he scooped one out, picked it up off the spoon, and popped it in his mouth.

He walked around the Great Hall handing the marshmallows out before explaining why they were safe to eat. The temperature difference between the liquid nitrogen and the rest of the room makes it evaporate quickly, he said, returning the marshmallows to normal as soon as they leave the liquid nitrogen.

When he stopped for questions at the end, one girl asked, “What kind of job would you have if you studied materials engineering?”

“The facetious answer to that is yes,” Genalo said. “There’s just a tremendous variety of materials jobs.”

Jennifer Erstad, a sixth-grader from Exira, said the presentation “gave different ideas, ideas for jobs.” Her friend Tessa Kaesen, also an Exira sixth-grader, said she was thinking about going into a medical field.

Genalo has been involved in the “Taking the Road Less Traveled” conferences since they began, giving the keynote address three or four times, he said.

In the 1980s, girls were not taking as much math and science in high school as boys, he said. Outreach programs across the nation changed that.

Now girls take as much math and science as boys, and have shown the ability to earn the same good grades. However, there are still more males than females pursuing engineering careers, he said.

“Women don’t perceive engineering as a helping profession, a people profession,” Genalo said.

He said science outreach programs to girls in the fourth, fifth and sixth grades can open the girls’ eyes before they decide “science and math isn’t for me.”

Although the number of women in science, technology, engineering and math has increased since 1985, the growth has leveled off in the last five years, said Karen Zunkel, program manager for the Program for Women in Science and Engineering.

Zunkel said the Program for Women in Science and Engineering will continue to reach out to girls who haven’t been exposed to science or who don’t have female science role models.

For example, this year Hamilton provided materials for teachers to use before and after the trip to Iowa State, she said. Added exposure could reinforce a positive attitude about science, Zunkel said.

“We need to expand upon what we’ve been doing,” Zunkel said. “These are great, eye-opening experiences for girls.”