FEMMES is an organization at the University of Michigan targeting middle school aged girls for early science intervention. The organization hosts a capstone event each semester where young girls are bused in from several school districts all over Southeast Michigan to spend a Saturday visiting different science and math based activities. I have volunteered for FEMMES in several capacities and most recently, having co-designed the Astronomy activity for the Winter 2018 Capstone event. Titled “What’s your address in the Universe?: Get to know your galactic neighbors!” , the activity is comprised of three different classes of astrophysical objects (neighbors) in the galaxy; stars, planets, and black holes. I adapted the demonstration on star and planet formation from my experience at UMMNH, to be an interactive discussion on star formation and designed a planet detection activity for the stars and planets portions, respectively.
