A “SKIRTING science” day was held at Taunton School on Tuesday (March 24) aimed at getting more females involved in science.

The STEM day (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) was organised by Soroptimist International Taunton and held at Taunton School.

Somerset County Gazette:

ELLIE dyer, Amy George and Katy Leslie taking part in a Prosthetics and Orthotics seminar. 

Over 200 Year 9 girls from schools in Taunton, Bridgwater, Wellington, Wiveliscombe and Langport took part in the interactive workshops delivered by science professionals.

Twelve schools from the area participated in the event which was organised by the Soroptimist International Taunton committee.

Among these were Racing Air Engines from Rolls Royce and Water for the World from Engineers without Borders.

Somerset County Gazette:

FAYE Tippetts and Emma Beak taking part in the BAE Systems careers in engineering seminar.

Girls worked in teams to identify food flavourings with TasteTech, experience optical illusions with Opticians, experimented with physics tricks from the Institute of Physics and saw the wonders of 3D Printing with local firm 3 Form UK.

Somerset County Gazette:

MOLLY Smith from Kings College taking part in the Physics Tricks Seminar by the Institue of Physics. 

The University of Bristol and the North Bristol NHS Trust Disablement Service ran workshops with a medical theme.

And Bridgwater College ran their popular forensic science workshop and Cosmic taught Augmented Reality on iPads.

Sally Williams, one of the organisers from Soroptimist International Taunton said: “This was our second Skirting Science event and it went really well.

Somerset County Gazette:

SALLY Williams with Mayor and Mayoress of Taunton Deane Dave and Renee Durdan. 

“We've had great feedback from teachers, the girls and those running the workshops.

“There's a lot in the news about how we have a lack of engineers and mathematicians - not just female but male too but I think a lot of females particularly in mixed classes are sometimes reluctant to join in in subjects like this and think it is something mainly for boys and these events show them the sorts of opportunities and jobs out there and there's often great female role models who explain how they got into their career.”

Somerset County Gazette:

CHRIS Nagel, Ruth Demenis, Mayor and Mayoress Dave and Renee Durdan and Amy Sloman from Castle School.