cool girls logo 

 

 

In This Issue
A New Home for Cool Girls: Page Two Cafe
Fall Schedule and Events
What We Did Recently
Gratitude for Cool Girls Angels
Our First-Ever Volunteer of the Year: Cindy Noel
Other Cool Events and News
Cool Girl Spotlight: Entrepreneur Piper
CG Board of Directors News
How Can You Help?
Best friends are cool!
Tessa-watermelon
Exploding watermelons!
 
telescope
To infinity and beyond! 
Ella learns about opthalmology.
Opthalmology up close 

The mission of Cool Girls Science and Art Club is to engage young girls in entrepreneurship, Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Mathematics (e-STEAM) so they have the desire, confidence and skills to sustain their contributions to the community throughout their personal, academic and professional journeys.

Bella-Trevyn-Milena-Ella
 
The club was founded in 2008 by a group of second-graders who love inquiry-based, hands-on learning about STEAM.

The girls are at the apex of the power pyramid in Cool Girls.  Each semester these first- through fifth-graders  select and evaluate what they want to learn with  mentors.   

   
Artist-entrepreneur

 
Cool Girls became a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in 2010. No child is turned away for financial reasons. We need your help to keep the program going and to reach other girls.  All contributions are tax-deductible.   

 

In 2011-2012, Cool Girls helped the National Girls Collaborative Project establish its Colorado affiliate by serving as the Convening Organization of the  Colorado Collaborative for Girls in STEM for its first year. 

  

Become a Cool Friend of Cool Girls today!   

 

 

Please donate or volunteer via our website.  

 

 

Contact Mary Golden, Executive Director, to learn more about becoming a sponsor of these underserved girls.

 

We are very grateful for the financial support of families of Cool Girls,  the  Irving Foundation, the Longmont Community Foundation, the Motorola Solutions Foundation, the National Girls Collaborative Project, the Noyce Foundation, and individual donors, and for all the time and passion donated by volunteers.  And to principal Ned Levine and staff, and teachers Renee Cerny and Erin Maxwell for sharing their classrooms at Crest View Elementary School; CLACE and Red Oak Park Community Center, Burlington Elementary School, and Page Two. 

 

I made a hovercraft by myself!

cool girls notebooks
I have that plant, too.

Dr. Alex Repenning and Cool Girls at STEMapalooza in Denver
Coding computer games with AgentSheets

My dad helped us build a maze today.

Macroinvertebrates rule!
 
Making a cast

BVSD Supt. Bruce Messinger goes hands-on with Cool Girls.

bee suits
Busy bees on a field trip to the Peace Garden

Lorraine and kids
Heat + soap + microwave = FUN

cool girls video
Editing our own movie with Lila Films 

lightbox constellation 2
I drew and named a constellation and built a night light with Cindy.
Bioscience field trip and dissecting rat brains

UV Light
Understanding physics

Black-white styrofoam moons
Astronomy camp-out at CU Mt. Research Station


astronomy student
CU mentor-astronomer Julia Kamenetzky changed our lives.
Art Director Cindy Noel is Volunteer of the Year!
 



Cool Girls Science and Art Club Board of Directors  members for 2013-2014 are:

Krishna Arugonda, Treasurer; 
Michelle Christenson, Chair;
Dr. Margaret Eisenhart, Recorder; 
Augusta Garrison;
Mary Golden, Executive Director;
Cindy Noel, Art Director;
Egbe Osamwonyi;
Emma Schwartz, Communications Chair

Cool Girls Science and Art Club Board of Advisors  members for 2013-2014 are:

Cori Chavez,
Joelle Friedman,
Shannon Golden-Schubert, 
Kate Hartman,
Dr. Cher Hendricks,
Annette Kissinger,
Dr. Samantha Messier,
Julie Poppen

COOL GIRLS WELCOMES NEW BOARD MEMBERS:  
If interested in a leadership position, please complete the volunteer form on our website.


CONTACTS:
Executive Director
or
Chair



cool girls logo





Stay tuned for a new e-STEAM lab combining music, math and science mentored by Emma Schwartz. This Cool Girls board member and newsletter editor is a senior at Fairview High where she is a soloist and a member of a singing group; Emma is also a science intern at NIST. 































August 26, 2013

Dear Friends of Cool Girls,   

 

As the 2012-2013 year concludes with another fun-filled and productive summer for Cool Girls Science and Art Club, we are gearing up for an exciting 2013-2014 in Boulder and Longmont. We have some stimulating new activities coming your way this semester from our new headquarters in Gunbarrel.  

 

Through multiple lenses, our program will focus on our Earth:  For example, we will study geology and chemistry, create petroglyphs, take field trips to collect fossils and dig clay to craft pottery, learn about the more than 35 precious minerals that go into computers, produce a book on the Crest View Habitat, and experiment with the interface between music and science.  

 

Thank you for your continuous support of our nonprofit, student-driven organization that provides girls with the opportunity to learn about e-STEAM: entrepreneurship, science, technology, engineering, the arts and mathematics.  

 

Please take the time to "like" us and comment on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. Stay up to date with our field trips and events, and view and post pictures and videos of your Cool Girls in action!  

 

We welcome your participation as mentors and advisors.  Check out our new Volunteer form on our website for opportunities.

 

P.S.  Save the date of Sunday, October 27, from 4 to 7 pm for a fabulous home-cooked Indian dinner and live entertainment at Masala Gala, our next fun-raising fundraiser in our new office space at Page Two in Gunbarrel!  Watch for your invitation to reserve a table soon. 

 

Emma Schwartz, Editor, and Mary Golden, Executive Director 

 

A New Home for Cool Girls: Page Two    

 

We are pleased to announce that Cool Girls has found a home within the comfortable ambiance of Page Two Caf� & Gifts in the Gunbarrel community near 63rd and Hwy. 119. The Boulder address of 6565 Gunpark Dr., Suite 110, is also convenient to Longmont. 
Cool Girls leaders invite you to our new home at Page Two. 
Our space will serve as an office and e-STEAM Art-Tech lab. Weekly office hours are posted on our calendar along with details of upcoming programs. In addition to our after-school club meetings at Crest View and Burlington Elementary Schools, we will offer occasional special activities with amazing mentors at Page Two.

Page Two is owned by Bal and Elisabeth Patterson and offers delightful food and a quaint gift shop. For more information on Page Two, read their reviews or call (303) 530-3339. Feel free to stop by, grab a cup of tea or coffee and a sandwich or pastry, and see our new space! 
If you'd like to talk about our program or borrow books for adults or children related to our e-STEAM curriculum, please come during office hours.  
Fall Schedule and Events

 

      Please check out our Calendar for the latest information on regular meetings, field trips and community events!

 

After-School Programs

Cool Girls documented the Crest View Habitat.

      Our sixth year at Crest View will  start up soon! Grades 1-3 will begin meeting in the two classrooms at the north end of the kindergarten wing on Tuesday, September 10th from 2:30-4:00 in the room on the left (west). Grades 4-5 will begin on Thursday, September 12th from 2:30-4:30 in the room on the right (east). For an updated schedule, please see our calendar. 

 

Registration and payment are now available via our website.  


No girl is turned away for financial reasons, so please contact Mary  for confidential scholarships or payment arrangements.

 

The annual Crest View Picnic will be held on Monday, September 10th from 5:00-7:00. Please volunteer to help with a fun activity at our table. For additional information regarding events at Crest View, please visit the Crest View Calendar.

 

COOL GIRLS EXPANDS TO SERVE LONGMONT  

 

      Thanks to the generosity of the Longmont Community Foundation, we are delighted to announce that Cool Girls will be expanding to Longmont with new after-school e-STEAM activities for girls in grades 1-3 at Burlington Elementary School. Principal Janis Hughes is a strong supporter of girls in STEAM, as is the Burlington parent group. The first club meeting is tentatively set for Wednesday, October 9th, from 3:00-4:30, but this may change.  If you would like to volunteer with the Burlington girls, please sign up via our website. 

 

For more information regarding Burlington events, please see our calendar and the Burlington Calendar.  

 

Crest View Mentor Appreciation Tea 

         Cool Girls mentors come from many cultures and age groups. On September 7th, we will host our first event in our new Page Two space with a Thank You Tea to honor our 4th and 5th grade Crest View mentors from the 2012-2013 school year.  The 1st, 2nd and 3rd graders were delighted to learn from them, and the older girls gained confidence and leadership skills. Please visit our Facebook page in mid-September for photos and details.

What We Did Recently 

Summer Art Show

   

Ananya, one of the nine Cool Girls artists whose woodcut prints are on exhibit through August 29 at the Library. 
This summer our Cool Girls completed an exciting project that showcased their art talents. With the guidance of Cindy Noel and Judi Strahota, one of our fabulous SkillShare volunteers and an accomplished sculptor and carpenter, girls created original woodcut prints. Parent and Board of Directors Chair Michelle Christenson and her husband Evan, along with Cindy, photographed these prints plus all those done by both sessions of Cool Girls at Crest View. The prints are on display at the Boulder Public Library Gallery through August 29th, so stop by and check out the girls' beautiful artwork! (Story below.)

Beginning later this fall, individual prints, cards and books of these and other woodcut prints by both our Crest View groups will be available for sale on our website. This is an exciting chance for the girls to experience entrepreneurship, one of our core values. Half of net proceeds of her sales will be given to the artist and the r
emainder will support Cool Girls' nonprofit program. Please visit the shop page on our website soon. What a great gift for friends and family, and anyone who loves art and nature! 

 

Red Oak Park Summer Program

Grace and Cool Girls experiment with density.

 

July's Wednesday afternoons were full of fun as we continued our Red Oak Park e-STEAM lab programs.

Grace, Mary, Cindy and bioengineer Kerry Weinberg demonstrated the properties of density with layers of liquids and lava lamps the girls constructed. Assisted by Cindy and Emma, Laurie Dameron, an accomplished   
Laurie and Cool Girls write a song about Earth.
singer and songwriter (and a SkillShare volunteer), showed the girls stunning  photographs of Colorado wildlife and taught them to write their own song about protecting the envi- ronment. Check out the song on our Facebook Page! 

 

We were also able to give Ariana, one of our Red Oak Park Cool Girls and an excellent student at Columbine, the long-term loan of our first laptop.  Thanks to board members Mary, Michelle and Margaret, Ariana will have online access as many of her fourth-grade classmates do. Her parents are very supportive of their three daughters and of Ariana's passion for e-STEAM.

 

Gratitude for our Cool Girls Angels 
CU astronomy grad students helped Cool Girls make their own telescopes and study the sky.

  

All of the wonderful work we are doing at Cool Girls would not have been possible without our tremendous support system. We at Cool Girls thank all of our wonderful students, parents, mentors, board members, and everyone who has volunteered to help bring our programs to life. With that, we would like to acknowledge the following people and organizations for their contributions:

  • First and foremost: our Cool Girls!
  • Page Two Caf� & Gifts for providing us with our lovely new space
  • Motorola Solutions Foundation and its employee Muralidhar Arugonda and his wife Krishna Arugonda, our treasurer, for their matching donations
  • Board members Michelle Christenson, Margaret Eisenhart, Augusta Garrison, Mary Golden, Cindy Noel, Egbe Osamwonyi and Emma Schwartz; and advisory board members Kate Hartman and Annette Kissinger for their substantial contributions of time, talent and treasure 
  • Barbara McDermid of the Boulder Potter's Guild for generously firing the Cool Girls handmade pottery
  • Laurie Dameron for mentoring the girls at Red Oak Park and helping them craft their wonderful song  
  • Grace Arkfeld and New Vista High School for tweeting on our behalf and leading chemistry experiments
  • Emma Schwartz of Fairview High School for editing this newsletter, heading our communications committee and mentoring Cool Girls  
  • Judi Strahota of SkillShare for sharing her artistic and carpentry talents as a mentor  
  • CU astronomy and Society of Women Engineers student mentors  
  • Andrea Barsch, Geri Brown, Tara Burkley, Susan Enfield, Joanie Holsomback, Lorraine Tartasky and the many others who provided mentoring, coordination and snacks    
  • We would also like to take a moment to honor Allan Holsomback, father of two of our Cool Girls, who passed away in July. Allan was a kind and skilled mentor who was helping with our Habitat project. Thank you, Allan, for your support for Cool Girls.    
      

Our First-Ever Volunteer of the Year: Cindy Noel  

 

Cool Girls Science and Art Club honors Cindy Noel for her many contributions over the past two years. As volunteer Art Director, Cindy developed a formal program emphasizing art as one of our core values and exposing the girls to many types of media. Cindy is passionate about our program and loves the girls as they do her.  She invites them into her home and heart.  

 

Cindy, an artist herself, put together a Cool Girls presentation board that has been an effective tool for us as we communicate our goals. Her 28 years as an art teacher in the Denver schools informed her work as co-author of our curriculum manual. Also a landscape architect, Cindy taught the girls to make woodcuts and block prints of the flora and fauna of Boulder's open space and the Crest View Habitat and put together their exhibit that was accepted as part of the Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks show that is at the Boulder Public Library through August 29th.  (Don't miss it! The collection is on the last wall to the left as you leave the gallery for the bridge. Story above.) 

 

These are only a few of Cindy's many substantial contributions to our program. Without her and her invaluable efforts, Cool Girls would not be where it is today. Cindy is also a generous member of the community network of volunteers, SkillShare. Please tell her how much you appreciate her efforts the next time you see her. 

 

Thank you so much, Cindy, for your gentleness, talent and devotion to our Cool Girls.      

An art & chemistry puzzle! The girls will figure it out...and they do
Matea and Anika paint nebulae.

Cindy demonstrates inking for block printing the Habitat project.
 

Other Cool Events and News

 

Open Space and Mountain Parks Hike    

Join Dave Sutherland, a naturalist with Boulder's Open Space and Mountain Parks on Saturday, August 31st  from 12:30-3:30 for a journey into Boulder's past to see rocks and fossils that tell stories of dinosaurs, glaciers, swamps, oceans and mountain ranges. The hike is approximately 2.5 miles in duration with 400 feet of elevation gain. If you're interested, meet at the Walter Orr Roberts Trailhead at the north side of NCAR!


Open Space and Mountain Parks Symphony
If you enjoyed the nature hike or if you just love music, come hear the world premiere of Jeffrey Nytch's "Formations," performed by the Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra at Macky Auditorium on September 7
th. The music is inspired by Colorado's rock formations!   
 

Flatirons Mineral Club Membership and Field Trips  

       Cool Girls will partner with the Flatirons Mineral Club (FMC) to enhance our focus on the Earth. FMC is a nonprofit organization that develops interest in earth science through monthly meetings, field trips and workshops. For more information or to become a member and take advantage of all of the wonderful events that FMC has to offer, visit their website. On August 17th, FMC is hosting their annual picnic in North Boulder Park.  

 

We also plan to join FMC's Field Trip to the Highway 93 Quarry to seek marine fossils and hope to see you there!    

Cool Girl Spotlights Entrepreneur Piper     

Cool Girl Piper has really demonstrated entrepreneurship recently. She developed her own line of handmade jewelry, which she is selling at Crystal Galleries, located at 1302 Pearl Street. She says, "I love making jewelry for other people to wear...it just makes me happy!"

Please buy her work and say hello to her grandparents, Lorraine and Lars, who run the gorgeous store featuring minerals, gems and fossils from all over the world. 
Lorraine, an Egyptologist and author, has been a frequent mentor to Cool Girls.

Other entrepreneurship mentors include Nicole Glaros of TechStars, who rehearsed the girls on their elevator speeches, and Michael Lynch, who led them through a tasty simulation of manufacturing and marketing rock candy.

Cool Girls Board of Directors News

The next meeting of our Board of Directors will be held on September 9th. For details, please contact Michelle or Mary. We would like to officially welcome our new board member Krishna Arugonda, who joined the Cool Girls Board of Directors as Treasurer. Krishna has a graduate degree in finance and is the parent of a Cool Girl.   

 

Krishna is heading up plans for our fundraiser, Masala Gala, on October 27 from 4-7 pm at Page Two.  A fabulous chef, Krishna will provide home-cooked Indian food without par. Board member Augusta Garrison, a bioscientist and singer, guarantees a delightful evening of live entertainment. Please mark your calendar and plan to buy your tickets early via our website.  



How Can You Help Our Girls Advance in e-STEAM?

This is a pivotal time for Cool Girls as we expand and improve our programs. To make all of these exciting ideas happen, we need your help! If you would like to volunteer in one of the following ways--or have your own idea--please fill out our online volunteer form.  

  • Serve on our Board of Directors  
  • Be a part of our curriculum, finance, fundraising or communications committees
  •  Run our online shop
  • Help out at the Crest View or Burlington picnics
  • Coordinate open houses in our Page Two location to acquaint neighboring businesses and residents with our program 
  • Mentor after-school sessions or field trips
  • Arrange a hands-on tour of your workplace for Cool Girls  
  • Aid in administration and management 
  • Mat and frame artwork for our art shows
  • Move equipment to our new space at Page Two
  • Sell tickets and help with Masala Gala, our October fun-fundraiser
  • Help us get 12 laptops for our new computer training sessions 
  • Write thank you notes to our mentors and sponsors
  • Serve on a telephone tree or carpool brigade 
  • Develop our website so others can use our resources and those of our partners to start their own Cool Girls (or Cool Boys) programs, wherever they are in the world 
  • Share your expertise and passion with Cool Girls
  • Donate funds to help our girls stick with science, computers and mathematics in school so they will be prepared for jobs in the STEAM sector one day  
  • Have fun...and change lives for the better! 

 


Happy Autumn!    
See you at the Masala Gala on October 27!

 
is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that serves girls in grades 1-5 from all socioeconomic groups and provides scholarships so that all can participate.