Girls on outdoor Adventure for Leadership and Science (GALS) of Eastern North Carolina
GALS is a FREE summer science program for female and non-binary high school students to engage with science while overnight camping and backpacking through the wilderness. GALS was created to increase hands-on science opportunities for high school students who are female or gender nonconforming, students of color, students from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds, and other groups underrepresented in fields of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math).
During this two week experience, students will learn ecology, earth science, and other topics by exploring their surroundings with local scientists. This mentally, physically, and academically challenging trip rewards students with a deep understanding of their natural surroundings and their own leadership strengths.
GALS strives to cultivate a passion for environmental science and stewardship, develop leadership abilities, enhance critical thinking skills, and promote teamwork. This program provides students with the unique opportunity to gain hands-on experience in science and experiential education while immersed in a supportive community of peers.
GALS of Eastern North Carolina serves students throughout North Carolina with a focus on students in the eastern region of NC as well as students in Virginia and South Carolina who live in an adjoining county to one of the counties we serve.
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What we do.
During this two week experience, students will learn ecology, earth science, and other topics by exploring your surroundings with local scientists. This mentally, physically, and academically challenging trip rewards students with a deep understanding of their natural surroundings and their own leadership strengths.
GALS strives to cultivate a passion for environmental science and stewardship, develop leadership abilities, enhance critical thinking skills, and promote teamwork. This program provides students with the unique opportunity to gain hands-on experience in science and experiential education while immersed in a supportive community of peers. -
Who we are.
GALS NC was founded in 2016 by four female PhD students in the Biology and Ecology programs at Duke University. We believe that there is a lack of free, hands-on, place-based science programs available for students who don’t identify as male, students of color, students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, and other groups underrepresented in fields of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math). We created GALS NC to address this need by providing enhanced science learning opportunities for students to engage with science in an outdoor setting. The advantages of learning science beyond the walls of a classroom include being fully immersed in the subject matter in new and engaging ways. We believe that the challenges of living in the outdoors also enables students to achieve personal growth, become strong team members, and develop leadership skills.
The first season of GALS was run in summer 2017 in North Carolina with one 2-week session for 8 participants. After an extremely successful summer with amazing young women, GALS NC expanded to include 3 sessions in North Carolina in June 2018, and several other GALS programs affiliated with other universities began in other states.
GALS of Eastern North Carolina evolved from a split of the larger North Carolina GALS program. Our hope is that by making North Carolina GALS more regionally based we will be able to make the program more accessible for more students. -
How to apply.
The GALS of Eastern North Carolina 2024 Field Experience is taking a pause to address funding. We plan to resume the program in 2025 with dates in June TBA. If you would like to be kept informed on program updates please join our email list.
If you have specific questions please feel free to email us: science.gals.eastern.nc@gmail.com
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Resources for educators.
All the lesson plans that we have used for GALS are listed below and can be downloaded by clicking on the lesson plan name. We hope these lessons can serve as a useful resource to educators, both in the classroom and outdoors. We will continue to update this page annually as we create new lessons for GALS.
Almost all of these lessons were created by the GALS team for GALS. Maggie Radack, Katrina Herrera, Elizabeth Allen, and Emily Levy worked on all lessons. Katie Hanson, Emily Ury, Jackie Gerson, Emily Rains, Juliet Ryan-Davis, Mary Gianotti, Jackie Bangma, Valerie Soon, Marie Simonin, Jocelyn Hoye, Elliot Mamet, and Amelia Meier helped to write, edit, and workshop lessons. We also include below some lessons created by BEETLES (beetlesproject.org), a fantastic education resource for outdoor educators.