I recently took my girls (aged 6 and 11) to see the Nanogirl Live! show when the team were in Hamilton.
Nanogirl was created to “inspire, educate and empower through STEM” and the Nanogirl Live! shows are a mixture of “explosive, engaging, entertaining and educational” live performance.
An ‘Out of this World’ show
For their Out of This World show, Boris (Nanogirl’s assistant) is thinking about going to space. Due to his curiosity about getting to and surviving in space, they ran though a series of awesome experiments. These experiments got LOUD and they got messy! But along the way, we all learnt a thing or two about thrust and Bernoulli’s principle, which is the theory of flight. We also learnt how water vapour allows us to see tornados, and how the moon is a giant mirror.
Before the show began, we were asked to fill in the “before” section of an audience survey. This exercise was really interesting to me. Neither of my children believed that they had been taught science at school. I did point out that learning about weather patterns, plant or animal lifecycles and even baking were all science. At primary school they often don’t call the lesson science though. My girls were unconvinced any science had been taught to them. Then when asked to describe what an engineer does, Miss 6 told me “he builds things”. I was blown away by the “he”!
The show went ahead, and was fast-paced and fun. There was a good mixture of visuals on a screen taking you through the principals and theories. CLAIR, an artificial intelligence, also featured on the screen helping out with further information. They talked through each experiment, asked for us to guess at what might happen and they included kids coming to the stage to help with the demonstrations. Miss 11 managed to get up and got to work with Nanogirl on a dry ice tornado. She was absolutely thrilled. There were several times when we were warned to put our fingers in our ears and honestly, you absolutely needed to. If you have a kid with sensitive ears, I would suggest taking ear protection along for their comfort.
Spreading the STEM message
After the show, the kids filled in the rest of their surveys. Miss 6 said that Nanogirl didn’t look like an engineer because she was too pretty. I silently promised myself I would start watching live-streams of female astronauts with her later! You can be pretty and make things, kid! Then we got to meet Nanogirl and have selfies as well. That was really special. The best thing about the show, was that aside from us getting to learn, the team also use some of the proceeds to run free science shows for schools as they tour. Science is definitely for everyone, and STEM shows like this are one way to help get that message out there.
Nanogirl is still touring at the moment through til mid December. Find out more about Nanogirl Live here.
This article was written by Kym Moore. Kym is a working mum of two, and occasional blogger. Fancies herself a writer, when she isn’t editing her kids’ vlogs or running their social media at Baby Likes Cake. Follow them on Facebook and YouTube.
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This sounds like an amazing show that shows girls can do these things too. Often young girls don’t have role models in certain fields so to have something like this is great.
Wow what an amazing show. I had never heard of it until now. I love doing science experiments with the kids. I will definitely try getting one of her books
I’m trying to recall if I’ve seen Nano Girl from a Moe Show – the local children’s show with other characters like Fern, Frank, and Gilbert. My 3 year old son watches the how to’s in this show and yes taught by a girl scientist! It’s good to have these kinds of shows and also encourages that whatever boys do, girls can too.
Wowee how awesome. This sounds like a great show about different science etc. Very lucky girls you have. Sounds like they had a blast. I must look into it as my miss 8 year old would love to see this show also ♥
If you missed the show Nanogirl has a Kitchen science book as well. We got one for Christmas and it’s full of fun experiments you can do at home. Okay maybe not as many HUGE explosions haha, but still fun!
This looks awesome and what a great way to get children interested in science in a fun way. Wish they had had this when I was at school.
Wow, this looks like it would have been so cool! My kids love science and things like that! I hope next time they bring their tour further south so I can take my kiddies!!
This sounds like a fantastic show and we were gutted to miss it in Wanganui as it was held during school hours last week. Science is a subject that is often neglected, particularly in primary school. Great to see a show which not only promotes science but also women in science.
Being a mum of young girls myself and with a hubby who is an engineer…i think this is amazing…its great opening up their minds to the sciences…and ive been amazed at how interested my daughter has been in science this first year of schooling life… brilliant…would love for my kids to experience something like this…learning through exploration
This looks really cool!! What kid doesn’t love science? I even love watching things like this as an adult 🙂 My almost 6 year old would love this type of show, pity there’s nothing where we live. I have been looking at a Science Kit to get her for her birthday which is Boxing Day.
Wow this would be great to see my kids love doing science at school so watching or even being involved in this would be a great experience but things like this are only in cities not little rural towns.