Posted: Monday, March 5, 2012 10:13 am | Updated: 10:46 am, Mon Mar 5, 2012.

Dozens of high school and middle school girls spent Saturday, Feb. 18 engineering brick walls, mixing chemical solutions, solving genetic and forensic quandaries, and conquering tricky logic problems at Foxcroft Schools K2M Expedition: The STEM Summit. Foxcroft School in Middleburg and Norwood School in Bethesda, MD, captured the competitions high school and middle school titles, respectively.

It was an outstanding day for all involved, Foxcroft Head of School Mary Louise Leipheimer stated. What these girls can do with math, science and technology is amazing. I dont know when Ive been so proud of our school.

The STEM Summit attracted a number of talented students from Virginia, Maryland and Washington, DC, with girls from 19 high schools and 12 middle schools competing. Working in teams of 3 or 4, students solved problems that draw on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) skills. Challenges included engineering a brick wall with the longest possible overhang, mixing chemical solutions to identify each element, solving a genetics problem called Whos Your Daddy? and conquering tricky logic problems. The middle school competition also included a forensics exercise that involved analyzing fingerprints and fiber samples.

The event was sponsored by K2M, Inc., a Leesburg firm that develops technological innovations for surgeons to treat complex spinal disorders. Two of the companys young engineers conducted one of the STEM Summit events, and CEO Eric Major came to watch.

We were so impressed with the energy, enthusiasm and intellectual curiosity of the Foxcroft girls who visited our lab last spring, stated Major, referring to a field trip by the Schools Engineering and AP Biology classes to learn about K2Ms engineering. So we thought partnering with Foxcroft to sponsor this event made a lot of sense.

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31 Teams Grapple In STEM Competition