Team

CaitlinBUTTERFIELD, MA, United States

PhoenixBUTTERFIELD, MA, United States

EmilyBUTTERFIELD, MA, United States

LindseyBUTTERFIELD, MA, United States

TailorBUTTERFIELD, MA, United States

Age Range

12 & under

Coaches

Martha GuilmetteBUTTERFIELD, MA, United States

Karen FredetteBUTTERFIELD, MA, United States

Category

Math

Science & Technology

Audience

Ages 9 and up

Language

English

Site Features

Online Activity / Game

Science / Lab Experiment

Video / Sound

Team Collaboration

Our team was brought together in an after school program called the Girls Club. We stayed after school Monday through Friday 3:00 to 5:15 for almost five months. We also stayed all day on half days. We had to stay with another teacher until 3:00 because our coach had to work until then. We came in before school at about 7:45 and after lunch during recess. In December of 2008, an all weekend ice storm that devastated Massachusetts was declared a state of emergency. Our team was not able to use the Internet at school or at our homes because there was no power. Also during the time making our site, the Internet router at our school stopped working. That meant we wouldn’t be able to use the Internet. When one teammate was having trouble or was stuck on a something another teammate would try to help that person. One assignment that took along time was the words for the intro. Emily tried dozens of different combinations of phrases. We decided to work together to get ideas for the words for the intro. We all sat around the same table and told each other what we thought was important for people to know. The members of our team were separated into 4 subjects, one doing Science, one doing Math, one for Engineering, and one for Technology. We also had a teammate who wasn’t assigned a subject. She had a whole section of the website to design and she helped everyone who was stuck on one of their assignments. There were times when one person was having trouble with what they were working on and someone else was having trouble, so they just switched assignments. I think that with all of us doing ThinkQuest we got know each other better.

Team Diversity

People may not realize it, but girls do most of the work that keeps families going. They take care of the young children, carry water, harvest the crops, and do chores. Here are some facts about girls in other countries. Most common in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, almost half of all girls are married before they turn 18. In Sub-Saharan Africa only 17 percent of girls join secondary school. In many countries girls cannot inherit land. One person in eight is a girl or a young woman. 122 million girls in Sub-Saharan Africa live on less than $1 a day. In many countries girls and women have no identity papers, like birth certificates, identity cards, and other documents that allow them to get a job. In adulthood, many girls have no official documentation of their age, names of their parents, and their health record. So girls, next time you think that you’re the only one having a lot of troubles in the world remember that girls in other countries may not have the chances you do.