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Raytheon Missile Systems Sponsors Math and Science Camp for Middle School Girls
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Last updated: 08/04/2011*
Thirty middle school girls from Tucson school districts attended the MISS Adventures camp, a weeklong hands-on, interactive experience to build interest in math- and science-related careers for girls. The MISS stands for math, information systems and science. The camp, in its sixth year, is part of the corporation’s MathMovesU® program and is sponsored by Raytheon in facilities provided by the University of Arizona.
Missile Systems engineers Rosemary Badian and Karen Christensen founded and continue to lead the camp. Its goals are to introduce girls to career opportunities in technical fields, to highlight the importance of math in every job and to stress that girls can accomplish their goals and be anything they want to be.
“Numerous studies have shown that girls tend to lose interest in math and science in their middle school years more than boys,” Christensen said. “So we’re trying to reach them between the ages of 11 and 14.”
This year’s campers spent a week at the University of Arizona’s Flandrau Center experiencing what it would be like to have a career as an engineer, FBI agent, firefighter, astronaut, photographer and more. The girls built airplanes, telescopes, created their own blogs and participated in a number of activities with different professionals that visited throughout the week.
This year Badian and Christensen were pleased to have two former campers return as counselors. Chaunteal Rasmussen and Adriana Parra were eager to come back and help out. Parra is entering her senior year at Desert View High School. Rasmussen, a Palo Verde High School graduate, will start at the University of Arizona this fall. The exposure Rasmussen received through MISS Adventures has led her to declare a major in systems engineering.
“MISS Adventures camp, as well as Rosemary and Karen, opened my eyes to the world of engineering and allowed me to gain an interest in it,” Rasmussen said. “I got involved with the engineer program at my high school, and I am now attending U of A’s Engineering and Honors College to work toward my career dream of being a systems engineer at Raytheon.”
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