Nearly 60 Girl Scouts from Charleston and surrounding areas spent Saturday afternoon learning about plants, animals and fish during Super Science Saturday.

“There’s eight troops here today,” Henderson said. “There’s girls as young as first grade up to eighth and ninth grade. Studio 2B troop…are older girls. They are high school age, and they’re here as volunteers today. They are actually helping the graduate students.”

Lori Henderson, manager for Service Unit 622, said that the scouts participating were from the towns of Charleston, Oakland and Kansas.

Graduate students from Eastern’s Biological Sciences program organized, designed and led seven science workshops, which each troop visited in turn throughout the day. Workshops were intended to be fun and teach biology in a hands-on way.

In “Corinna’s Animal Hunt,” the girls were introduced to radio telemetry, in which radio collars or other tiny radio transmitters are attached to an animal so biologists can study their movements in their natural environment.

Workshop leader Corinna Hanson, a second-year grad student in wildlife ecology, showed her audience pictures of different types of animals wearing radio transmitters – wolves and bears wearing collars, and baby turtles with tiny devices glued on their backs. She and the troop then used a tracking antenna to search for a radio-collared Beanie Baby hidden in the building.

“They all really wanted to hold the antenna,” Hanson said. “I’m hoping they learn about ways biologists do fieldwork.”

Grad student Jeff Fore, who led “Jeff’s Fishing Expedition,” taught the Girl Scouts about what fisheries biologists do.

“They collect data to make fishing better for fishermen, or [to help] if there’s a species that needs protecting,” Fore said.

Other workshops included “Terri’s World of Birds,” “Vince’s Fungus Amongus,” and “Angela’s Snake Shack.”

During their orientation Joanne Crawford, a graduate student in Eastern’s Biological Sciences Department and organizer of the event, told the crowd of chatty girls, “Today we’re going to talk about mammals, snakes, fish, birds and even the fuzzy stuff that grows in your fridge when you’ve left food in there too long.”

“We appreciate the support of the department of Biological Sciences,” Henderson said. “This is a terrific opportunity not only for girls to be introduced to the field of biological sciences, but also to be introduced to a university setting.”

“I hope the girls learn about animals they might not normally learn about, like snakes or fish,” Crawford said. “They’ve all pretty much got mammals down.”

She explained that the more important function of the day was to expose the girls to the field of biology and the possibility of college. “They too can go on to college and be biologists,” Crawford said.

Super Science Saturday was funded by the College of Sciences and by Eastern’s chapter of Sigma Xi Scientific Research Society.