Menlo School Girls Spend Night at the Tech Museum

Nearly 100 girls from Menlo’s Bridge to Engineering, Science & Technology (M-BEST) program had a "Night at the Museum"—a sleepover at The Tech Museum in San Jose. A unique, engaging way to introduce the girls to even more science, the event also promoted camaraderie, connection and collaboration.

The evening opened with orientation and dinner, and then the girls split into two groups: Earthlings and Martians. The groups rotated between activities.

On the roof, astronomers from the San Jose Astronomical Society shared views from their telescope for star/planet gazing, targeting Uranus, colorful double star Albireo, the Ring Nebula, various star clusters—and of course, Mars, where the Curiosity rover is doing lab work in “real time”!

In the galleries, students took on a variety of hands-on activities. “Mission: Mars, Gale Crater” and “What Would YOUR Planet Look Like” were design challenges. For “Spaghettify: Understanding Black Holes,” girls learned how the stretching of black holes works and how an astronaut or star would stretch out as it enters. “Tessalations” took place in The Tech’s Hands-On Science Workshop.