Lessons from Girl Scout Physics Outreach Day at the University of Michigan

The University of Michigan Society of Women in Physics (SWIP) has been actively collaborating in and coordinating community outreach activities since its founding in 2004. These events range from public demonstration days to high school Physics Olympiad competitions. In 2012, SWIP started an interactive demonstration day for local Girl Scout troops to specifically target an elementary and middle-school aged audience. Girl Scout Day became an annual event, and SWIP interacted with the same set of girls as they matured from 4th-6th graders to 6th-8th graders. At each event, SWIP conducted informal verbal and written surveys on their perceptions of Physics. While in all events girls of all ages asked questions regarding the experience of being a physicist and physics careers, the first event received a significant number of gendered questions. For example, ``What percentage of women are physicists?'' or ``Are there lots of cool girls studying physics?'' In following events, these questions were replaced with more technical questions about experiments from the day and questions like ``Do you like your choice in jobs?'' In this talk we will share our experiences from this outreach project and propose ideas on how to shape events for these age groups in the future.