"Niñas Atómicas" (Atomic Girls): An initiative that generates opportunities for young girls in STEM

This paper presents "Niñas Atómicas," a Chilean workshop initiative that empowers high school girls to develop critical thinking and scientific skills by building muon detectors under the mentorship of female scientists, while sharing the program's methodology, experimental results, and participant experiences to advance physics education and outreach.

The Gist

The Big Idea: A "Science Camp" for Teen Girls

Imagine a two-week summer camp, but instead of learning to bake cookies or build forts, 15-to-16-year-old girls from all over Chile are learning how to catch "ghosts" from outer space.

The paper describes an initiative called "Niñas Atómicas" (Atomic Girls). Its goal is simple: to show high school girls that science isn't just a bunch of boring formulas in a textbook. Instead, it's a hands-on adventure where they build their own tools, catch real data, and act like real scientists.

The "Ghost" They Are Catching: Muons

To understand the experiment, you need to know about muons.

• The Analogy: Think of muons as tiny, super-fast raindrops falling from the sky. But instead of water, they are particles of light and energy created when cosmic rays (space dust) hit our atmosphere.
• The Magic: These "raindrops" are heavy and tough. They can punch through mountains and buildings without stopping. In fact, about one of these particles passes through the palm of your hand every second.
• The Challenge: You can't see them with your eyes. You need a special machine to catch them.

The Project: Building a "Muon Trap"

The core of the workshop is that the girls don't just watch a demonstration; they build the machine themselves.

• The Kit: They assemble a detector using plastic boxes (3D printed), special light sensors, and wires. It's like building a high-tech birdhouse, but instead of catching birds, it catches invisible space particles.
• The Process:
  1. Classroom: They learn the basics of particle physics (what the universe is made of) and electronics (how to wire the trap).
  2. Assembly: They travel to a university lab in Santiago to put the pieces together.
  3. The Hunt: They plug the machine into a computer, and it starts counting the "ghosts" hitting their detector.

What Did They Learn? (The "Skills" Analogy)

The paper says the girls learned two main types of skills, which the authors call "transferable skills." Think of these as tools they can use in any job, not just science:

1. The "Detective" Mindset: They learned how to ask a question, test it, and look at the evidence. For example, they asked: "Do we catch more ghosts at the top of a mountain than at the bottom of the valley?"
2. The "Translator" Skill: They learned to speak the language of computers (programming). Just as you need to learn English to talk to someone from another country, they learned Python (a coding language) to talk to their data and make graphs.

The Results: Did It Work?

The paper reports on two things: the science data and the girls' feelings.

1. The Science Data:

• The Mountain Test: The girls took their detectors to different heights. One group went to a high park (1,850 meters up), while others stayed at the university (around 550 meters up).
• The Discovery: The detector at the top of the mountain counted more muons than the one at the bottom. This proved their hypothesis: the higher you go, the more "ghosts" you catch because there is less atmosphere blocking them.
• The "Lifetime" Puzzle: The paper mentions that calculating the exact "lifespan" of a muon (how long it lives before disappearing) is very hard because it requires complex math about time and speed. None of the girls managed to solve this specific puzzle, but the authors included it to show that the machine is powerful enough to do it if you have the right math skills.

2. The Girls' Feelings (The Survey):
After the workshop, the girls filled out a survey. The results were very positive:

• Confidence: Almost all of them felt closer to understanding how real scientists work.
• Comfort: Many said they felt more comfortable asking questions and sharing doubts because the room was filled only with other girls.
• Perspective: A large majority said their view of science changed "quite a lot" or "very much." They realized that science is something they can do, not just something they read about.

The Challenges: It's Not Easy

The authors are honest about the hurdles.

• Money and Logistics: Building these detectors costs about $300 each. Getting girls from remote areas to travel to the city for two weeks requires a lot of funding and organization.
• Language: Most science is written in English, but the girls speak Spanish. The team had to create all their own teaching materials in Spanish because there weren't enough good resources available.
• Tech Access: To participate, the girls needed a real computer and internet at home, not just a phone.

The Bottom Line

The "Niñas Atómicas" workshop is a recipe for success:

1. Give girls a real, working scientific tool (the muon detector).
2. Let them build it, break it, and fix it.
3. Let them ask their own questions and find the answers.

The paper concludes that this approach works. It doesn't just teach physics; it changes how the girls see themselves, turning them from students who listen to science into young scientists who do science.

Technical Summary

Technical Summary: "Ni˜nas At´omicas" (Atomic Girls)

Problem Statement
Despite the ubiquity of science, educational opportunities to experience it are not universally available, and significant gender inequalities persist in STEM fields. Globally, only 28% of science researchers are women, and in Chile, gender scoring gaps in high school mathematics correlate with stereotypes, lack of confidence, and limited access to resources. The "Ni˜nas At´omicas" initiative addresses the need to provide high school girls with a concrete space to experience how real science is conducted, aiming to foster critical thinking and transferable skills before they choose their university majors.

Methodology
The initiative is a two-week workshop held annually since 2022, targeting girls aged 15–16 from across Chile. The program operates in a hybrid model, combining online theoretical instruction with in-person laboratory work at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.

1. Curriculum Structure:

   • Particle Physics: Three online sessions cover fundamental concepts, including the nature of matter, the Standard Model, and the specific properties of muons (creation via cosmic rays, mass, and lifetime).
   • Electronics: Three sessions introduce electrical components (conductors, semiconductors, diodes, SiPMs) and instrumentation (multimeters, oscilloscopes), focusing on the specific components used in the detector.
   • Programming: Four sessions teach Python using Google Colab to analyze data, emphasizing data visualization and file handling.
   • Scientific Methodology: Sessions utilize historical case studies (e.g., the OPERA neutrino anomaly) to teach peer review, falsifiability, and the formulation of hypotheses.

2. Experimental Apparatus (Muon Detector):
   Participants assemble a custom muon detector consisting of:

   • Two plastic scintillators wrapped in reflective foil.
   • Two Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPMs) to detect light emission from the scintillators.
   • Hexagonal and main casings 3D-printed from black PLA filament to act as light-tight enclosures.
   • A custom Printed Circuit Board (PCB) developed by the Center for Theoretical and Experimental Particle Physics (CTEPP) at Universidad Andrés Bello.
   • An Arduino UNO microcontroller connected to an SD card module for data logging.
   • Signal Processing: The system requires a coincidence between the two SiPM channels within a nanosecond window to register a valid muon event, filtering out noise. Data is recorded as a timestamped count in a .txt file.

3. Data Collection and Analysis:
   Girls assemble the detectors in groups of four to five, guided by female undergraduate and graduate student tutors. They collect data at various altitudes (e.g., sea level vs. 1850m) and analyze the muon flux and, theoretically, the muon proper lifetime.

Key Results
The paper reports on data and feedback from 50 participants across the 2024 and 2025 editions.

• Scientific Findings:

  • Muon Flux: Participants successfully demonstrated that muon flux is altitude-dependent. Data collected at 1850m (Location A) showed a mean rate of 9.1 muons/minute, compared to 2.7 muons/minute at 547m (Location C).
  • Muon Lifetime: While the theoretical framework allows for calculating the muon proper lifetime ($\tau$) using the decay equation $N(t) = N_0 \exp(-t/\gamma\tau)$, the authors note that no participants successfully performed this estimation due to the complexity of special relativity concepts required. However, the authors demonstrated the calculation using their own aggregated data, deriving a value of 1.7 ns (close to the accepted 2.2 ns), illustrating the experiment's full potential.
  • Data Quality: Longer data acquisition times (approx. one hour) yielded more stable statistics and clearer Gaussian distributions compared to shorter intervals (20 minutes).

• Educational Outcomes (Survey Data):
  A survey of 40 participants revealed high levels of agreement with the workshop's objectives:

  • Skill Acquisition: 95% agreed the workshop helped them learn theoretical content through experimentation; 93% felt it improved their understanding of the scientific method.
  • Career Perception: 100% felt the workshop brought them closer to the real work of scientists; 97% reported learning new concepts in an unfamiliar area.
  • Environment: 62% felt more comfortable expressing doubts in the all-girls setting.
  • Impact: 70% reported their perception of science changed "quite a lot" or "very much," and 57.5% reported a significant shift in their perception of women's participation in science.

Significance and Claims
The paper claims that "Ni˜nas At´omicas" successfully provides a concrete, hands-on experience of scientific practice for high school girls, bridging the gap between abstract theory and experimental reality. By combining particle physics, electronics, and programming, the initiative fosters transferable skills such as critical thinking, perseverance, and data analysis.

The authors emphasize that the workshop serves as a decision-making aid for students considering STEM careers by demystifying the scientific process and providing a supportive, female-led environment. While acknowledging challenges such as funding requirements (approx. $300 USD per detector), logistical complexity, and the scarcity of Spanish-language particle physics resources, the initiative aims to cultivate scientific thinking and inspire curiosity about the universe. The final scientific reports produced by the students serve as a resource for them to share with their local communities, acting as ambassadors for the program.