About 350 middle- and high-school girls from across middle Tennessee will participate in the 15th annual Expanding Your Horizons in Math and Science conference this Saturday, Oct. 22, at MTSU.

The conference will provide many fascinating individual workshops as well as inform participants about interesting aspects of science, technology, engineering and math and numerous potential careers shared by experts in these fields.

Among the unique workshops for middle-school girls will be “Chicks on a Mission to Explore,” “Nurses by Day, Divas by Night,” “Concrete is Lean, Mean and Green” and “Menacing Microbes.” High-school girls can attend “The Science of Hogwarts,” “Superbugs vs. Designer Drugs,” “Rocket Girls” and “Fintastic Science,” to name just a few.

Jennifer Ilsley

Joining MTSU faculty as workshop presenters will be professionals from Nissan North America Inc., Schneider Electric, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Stones River National Battlefield, CB&S Bank, Meharry Medical College, Nashville Zoo at Grassmere, the Wilson County School System, Tennessee Technology Center at Murfreesboro, Lipscomb University, the Aerospace Testing Alliance, the Business Education Partnership Foundation at the Rutherford County Chamber of Commerce, the U.S. Air Force and Sanford, a Newell Rubbermaid Company.

MTSU senior and EYH assistant Jennifer Ilsley, an EYH alumna as a middle-school participant and an annual volunteer since ninth grade, will serve as the keynote speaker Saturday morning. Ilsley is a professional mathematics major and accounting minor. She maintains a 4.0 GPA and plans to graduate in December.

Registration for this year’s EYH has closed. To learn about the 16th annual EYH at MTSU in fall 2012, call 615-904-8253.

— Randy Weiler (Randy.Weiler@mtsu.edu)