KY EPSCoR: Expanding Your Horizons - a STEM Conference for Middle School Girls

Expanding Your Horizons (EYH) is an international network of hands-on conferences for middle school girls in STEM. NSF-funded national non-profit EYH leadership provides a helpful infrastructure for individual conferences (including website and registration support) but gives each program flexibility and autonomy. While there are over 80 EYH conferences offered worldwide, in 31 states plus countries in Europe and Asia, there has never been a conference offered in Kentucky. However, discussions with other STEM conferences serving Kentucky's middle school girls in STEM (TechSavvy, Girls Stem Day) indicate that this is an underserved audience with great potential for growth. We propose hosting an Expanding Your Horizons (EYH) conference for middle school girls on the UK campus. The conference will feature a day of interactive STEM workshops for middle school-students led by UK undergraduate and graduate students and will also include college preparation sessions for accompanying parents. We will hold the first conference on a Saturday in April 2017.