History
Founded in 2001 by Lauren Tozzi (Class of '02), TWIST is a relatively young club at Jefferson. As part of our SGA (Student Government Association), Lauren created the position of Women's Issues Specialist. This position soon evolved into a council of students from all four grade levels called Treatment of Women's Issues in Science and Technology.
The Council began by brainstorming ways we could empower girls at our school and heighten awareness of our community's attitude towards women. One of TWIST's first goals was to form links with the three women's clubs at our school: Keyettes, GEMS (mentoring middle school girls) and WISE (mentoring elementary school girls). Next, TWIST conducted discussion groups with the faculty to hear their concerns. They eagerly gave us feedback, and we compiled and circulated a single document containing their input.
In '01-'02, we organized a sophomore workshop (SophShop) to introduce girls to the various techlabs. We conducted a similar project, Froshop, in '02-'03, which gave all freshmen an opportunity to explore the senior techlab options. Our Senior College Transitions Workshop has become a tradition at the end of each school year we initiate an impressive "Tech-Stravaganza" carnival for middle-school girls. Other mentoring clubs and volunteers at TJ ran booths with hands-on experiments to spark the interests of future scientists. We hosted a panel of speakers who shared their career experiences and the influence that science and technology have had in their lives.
(c) Xiaoxiao Lin. All rights reserved.