At the start of the summer, from Thursday 13th – Saturday 22nd July, 12 students from Years 10-12 travelled to Philadelphia for the first live event of our partnership with the Academy of Notre Dame de Namur. NHEHS girls were invited to the International Sisters in STEM Symposium 2023 along with students from four other schools around the world. In order to gain a place on the Symposium, NHEHS students had to write a letter of application mentioning their motivation, suitability for the courses and how they intended to make use of their experience once back at school.

The week-long, cross-cultural academic gathering focused on using STEM fields and practices to collaboratively address several of the world’s complex issues. At the heart of the symposium were courses on “Designing Dignified Communities” “achieving net zero” and “What’s Really Happening in Chemical Reactions?”  Each course focused on multi-dimensional global problems and ways of using the STEM disciplines to solve them.

Twelve NHEHS students (three from Year 10) worked with their counterparts from other sister schools, in a true international collaboration as students came from the UK, Peru, Argentina, USA, Japan and Taiwan.

A busy week of insightful discussions, practical activities and experiments followed, culminating in final presentations, with an inspirational keynote speech by Dr Mae Jemison, the first Black American woman to travel in space. She was truly inspirational.

The trip also included a wonderful tour around Princeton University as well as a full day in New York, where the group enjoyed a fantastic Broadway experience at Hade’s Town following an action-packed morning of sightseeing, shopping and eating, including lunch at the Rockefeller Center.

All in all a very exciting opportunity for the girls to discover America and make friends with students from around the world.