By Brad McLelland

JONESBORO -- For someone to teach young girls math and science, Dr. Staria Vanderpool said, it takes a lot of patience and a lot of pre-organizing -- especially when there are hundreds of them.

More than 250 students attended Saturday's Women in Science day at Arkansas State University, an annual event that brings fifth- and sixth-grade girls from all over Northeast Arkansas into ASU classrooms and facilities. The purpose of the day is to give the girls hands-on experience in various fields of math and science, from botany, zoology and medicine to ecology, anatomy and physiology.

The day-long, workshop-based event -- dubbed "the field trip of a lifetime" -- kicked off at 9 a.m. with a briefing in ASU's Laboratory Sciences building. To organize the students, ASU professors, science majors and assistants grouped the girls into 20 separate, color-coded groups, each one with names such as "Rose," "Shamrock," "Sunshine," "Fossil" and "Frog Green." Each group was then directed to the first round of workshops, which lasted about 20 minutes.

Other workshops followed throughout the day, with a lunch break at noon.

"Anyone know what this is?" asked Dr. Tina Teague, an ASU entomologist, holding up a light-green container during a morning workshop on insects. "It's a boll weevil trap. Insects are attracted to this color. But there's also a piece of plastic inside that's impregnated with a chemical that boll weevils use to communicate with each other. Know what that's called? It's called pheromone. All kinds of animals have pheromone."

At one point Teague disappeared into a storeroom, emerging with a white 5-gallon bucket.

"This is a bucket of cow eyes," Teague said. "What do y'all think of that? Ain't that fun?"

"Gross!" the girls replied. "Nasty!"

During a workshop titled "Plants Around You," Vanderpool, a professor of plant biology and conservation, told students that studying hard, learning computers and reading "everything" were the three keys to being a good student and entering college.

"Read cereal boxes, read newspapers, read comic books -- everything you can get your hands on. Remember that you'll be taking the ACT or SAT tests, and those tests are based on your reading and math skills. What happens if you do well on those tests?"

"You get money," one girl replied.

Vanderpool, a founding member of the Women in Science organization, said this year's event was WITS' sixth, and the girls went through seven workshops -- 17 in the morning, 17 in the afternoon.

"That's so they can sample a little bit of everything and get a broad spectrum of knowledge on each subject," the professor said.

Leslie Knod, WITS president, said afterward that the girls heard from 30 different presenters and took part in several experiments, from extracting DNA from strawberries and making "Gak" to analyzing termites and planting seeds.

"Some even went home with goldfish," Knod said. "It was a lot of fun, and the girls loved it."

One student came all the way from Little Rock to participate, Knod added. The event even drew home-schooled students.

How does WITS prepare for such a big day?

"We pre-organize," Vanderpool said. "We plan and plan. And I am totally pleased with how well the day went. The young ladies had a very enjoyable time ... and we could almost literally see ideas and attitudes changing, going from a 'Gross! Yuck!' to a 'Wow! That's cool!' attitude, and that's the wonderful thing about working with this age group.

"This day is good because we can show them some of the realities of the sciences compared to some of the stereotypes. We really appreciate the effort the parents and the schools gave, and we look forward to next year."

bradmc@jonesborosun.com