On June 7, the mere thought of climbing a ladder made Maddie Janssen sick with fear.

On June 8, the 11-year-old from Denver dangled from a rope 25 feet above the ground at the Exempla West Pines ropes course in Wheat Ridge, her life in the hands of 10 young girls she had just met.

By June 9, Maddie scrambled up the grubby rock wall of the Gregory Canyon Amphitheater - twice. Her hands and legs still trembled all the way, but something big had changed inside her.

"I conquered my fear," she said, sitting on a cold gray stone inside the historic arbor at Chautauqua Park on Wednesday.

Motioning to the other participants in the Girls on the Wild Side, who were sitting around her in a horseshoe, Janssen added, "There was a ton of support. Everyone was always cheering you on . . ."

An eager voice chimed in: "I could see where she could go and help her."

Another voice bubbled: "It was 60 feet in the air."

Said one more: "You looked down and could see the little, tiny white dots of the helmets."

The 11 girls, ages 10 through 13, most from the Boulder County area, sounded as if they were lifelong friends. Their instructor, Brandy Hodgson, said she barely can believe that they just met. But that's the nature of the weeklong class, she said.

Marley McLaughlin, 12, of Longmont, said, "On the ropes course, having a person support you - if you fall, they'll save your life - that gets you closer."

The class was designed to empower girls through teamwork, pushing their physical and mental limits and exposing them to women role models in the science field.

Of the almost 200 summer classes offered through the University of Colorado's Science Discovery program, Girls on the Wild Side is one of the most popular.

Some participants, such as 11-year-old Carli Hawkins, signed up for new adventures. Not to be judged by her pink-polka-dot skirt and fuzzy pink fleece, Hawkins said, "I like getting muddy."

Though she is a "seasoned" climber of a large willow tree in her back yard, Hawkins never had climbed so high before.

"If you try it, maybe you'll find something new you like, find new things to put inside your comfort zone," she said.

While clinging to the rock wall and wrestling the Cache la Poudre River in rafts, Hawkins and many other participants said they got their first tastes of their individual potentials.

They also got daily science and wildlife lessons. While at the Poudre, they studied river ecology with a female geologist. And in Gregory Canyon, the girls learned about the rocks they were scaling.

On June 11, they took a tour of the tundra and wildflowers near the CU Mountain Research Station, about seven miles northwest of Nederland.

Savannah Schilling, 10, of Broomfield, summed up the program with an analogy.

She stuck out her hands and showed how she naturally folds them. Then she switched their places, with the other thumb on top.

"It feels weird doing it differently, but it's not like it's going to hurt your thumbs," Schilling said. "Here, I learned trying something new might feel weird. But it won't hurt you."

More information

• Science Discovery is an outreach program through the University of Colorado's School of Education. It serves about 35,000 children every year. Summer classes started last week and run for nine weeks.

• Web site: www.colorado.edu/science discovery

Aimee Heckel at 303-473-1359 or heckela@dailycamera.com

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