{"id":57981,"date":"2016-02-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-02-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/uri-chemistry-professor-mindy-levine-to-offer-sugar-science-day-feb-17\/"},"modified":"2016-02-01T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-02-01T00:00:00","slug":"uri-chemistry-professor-mindy-levine-to-offer-sugar-science-day-feb-17","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2016\/02\/uri-chemistry-professor-mindy-levine-to-offer-sugar-science-day-feb-17\/","title":{"rendered":"溏心vlog免费B站 chemistry professor Mindy Levine to offer Sugar Science Day, Feb. 17"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tKINGSTON, R.I.\u2014Feb. 1, 2016\u2014Sugar is sweet, but it\u2019s also fascinating, at least to scientists. Now high school girls in Rhode Island will also have a chance to learn more about the white stuff.<\/p>\n


\n\t\tMindy Levine, an assistant professor of chemistry at the 溏心vlog免费B站, is offering a one-day class about the chemistry of sugar Wednesday, Feb. 17, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., on the Kingston campus. It\u2019s the program\u2019s first year.<\/p>\n


\n\t\tGirls will make their own rock candy, study the amount of sugar in soft drinks and separate candies based on chromatography (the separation of mixtures). They\u2019ll also investigate what happens when gummy bears come into contact with certain chemicals, and they\u2019ll make ice cream with liquid nitrogen. Oh, they get to eat it too.<\/p>\n


\n\t\t\u201cIt\u2019s a fun and challenging day,\u201d says Levine. \u201cWe encourage girls to sign up.\u201d So far, 22 have registered, and Levine says she has room for 50. Register<\/a><\/p>\n


\nThe recipient of a 2016 Rising Star Award from the American Chemical Society, Levine has been speaking out for years about the importance of educating high school girls about chemistry and careers in science.<\/p>\n


\nHer annual chemistry camp in April is packed with girls learning about everything from the chemistry of bubbles to forensic investigations using lipstick. This year, Pfizer and Shimadzu Scientific Instruments are supporting the camp; Sugar Science Day is funded as part of a five-year grant from the National Science Foundation.<\/p>\n


\nResearch shows that girls start losing interest in science in middle school and, in some cases, even earlier. That results in few women pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering and math, Levine says. <\/p>\n


\nAt the top 50 research universities in the United States, only 18 percent of tenured and tenure-track positions were held by females in 2012, she says. This gender gap may start as early as elementary school, with girls having a more negative attitude toward science than males. <\/p>\n


\nLevine attributes the gap to many causes: a lack of female scientists as role models, which contributes to a child\u2019s perception that scientists are overwhelmingly men; girls\u2019 belief that they don\u2019t have the aptitude and ability to succeed in science, math, technology and engineering; and reinforcement of these stereotypes by teachers, parents and others in authority.<\/p>\n


\nLevine is determined to show girls that science is fun, challenging and accessible.<\/p>\n


\n \t\u201cFor too long girls and women have been held back in science by a variety of internal and external factors,\u201d she says. \u201cPrograms like Sugar Science Day provide high school girls with hands-on experience and interaction with other female scientists who are role models for what it means to be a female in a heavily male-dominated field.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nLevine is one of those role models. She received her undergraduate and graduate degrees from Columbia University and did post-doctoral training at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is an expert in synthetic organic chemistry, with a focus on how chemicals communicate with each other when they\u2019re not attached. Through her research, she\u2019s developing medical diagnostic tools and sensors for detecting toxins.<\/p>\n


\n \t\u201cI was fortunate. I had strong female scientist role models who encouraged and supported me at every stage in my career,\u201d she says. \u201cMy dream is to be able to provide encouragement and reinforcement for all girls at all levels to pursue the careers of their dreams.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nPictured above: Mindy Levine, an assistant professor of chemistry at the 溏心vlog免费B站.

\nPhoto courtesy of Mindy Levine.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KINGSTON, R.I.\u2014Feb. 1, 2016\u2014Sugar is sweet, but it\u2019s also fascinating, at least to scientists. Now high school girls in Rhode Island will also have a chance to learn more about the white stuff. Mindy Levine, an assistant professor of chemistry at the 溏心vlog免费B站, is offering a one-day class about the chemistry […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57983,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57981\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}