Expanding Your Horizons Conference at MPCC

NORTH PLATTE, Neb. (KNOP) - The Expanding Your Horizons in Math and Science Conference took place at the Mid Plains Community College.

In years past, career paths in science- and math-related fields have not always been readily accessible to women and minorities. This event is to help middle school girls explore different career options in science, mathematics, and non-traditional fields. The conference also lets these young ladies meet women who are involved in these challenging yet rewarding careers.

342 middle school girls attended the conference, representing 17 schools in the area. The students that attended had the choice of going to the different workshops that were available, such as: aviation, banking, chiropractic, computer coding, funeral directing and embalming, horticulture, entomology, law enforcement, and drone flying, and more. The sessions were led by volunteers from 32 different businesses, and most of the presenters were women.

Chrissy Barnhart, who is a vet tech at the Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture in Curtis, said, “Teaching young minds has been amazing watching them develop a love for animals -- I haven’t been there before -- or passion that I need to help language direction he wanted to go with, and being here with these guys, it’s pretty incredible because in opening up their minds to the whole thing that they may have never even known existed before like I was always going to snakes when I loved them; I may be a herpetologist one day, so it’s really great.”

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