This is the first of two related blogs based on a speech at the Museum of Life and Science in Durham! Let’s dive in!
parenting-a-stem-girl-finalDownload
It was an incredible International Women’s Day! I spent the day at the Museum of Life and Science in Durham where I gave two speeches about Girls and STEM that I’ll recap here.
My first speech, Parenting a STEM girl, was focused on girls under 8 years old. It focused on sharing the context of why STEM is important, but also the distance we are from true equity in the field. I suggested that these narratives about STEM and girls are written early, sharing a study about how girls, but not boys, in Kindergarten absorb the math anxieties of their teachers.
In reviewing the SciGirls Strategies (that a group of really talented people from diverse parts of the equity ecosystem, myself included) helped update the strategies that have so effectively been used for more than a decade with teachers to include newer research.
In that frame, those six strategies were given paraphrases by me and for this talk, I focused on three, namely the ones that would give girls “all the feels” at a young age. I discussed with parents the need for physical, mental, emotional and personal engagement through books, videos, characters, and LOTS of hands-on experimentation. I shared a tease of the new PBS show, Hero Elementary, and talked a lot about how parents can take charge during both the in-school and out-of-school time their girls spend doing STEM.
Embedded above and below are some of the resources and references I offered.
Finally, don’t forget The Connectory, the largest database of programs for girls and boys in the United States. It’s a program of the National Girls Collaborative Project, of which I am the proud Board Chair for 2020. It will connect you to not just the network of programs to support your kids, but entire organizations and networks near you fighting for equity.
Click the download button to see the slide deck from my speech and as always, feel free to reach out to me via email if you have questions or would like introductions.
Hands on toys/subscriptions/artifacts
Kiwi and Co. boxes
Local libraries
TV shows
Research and Context
Books, Websites and More
The Rosie Revere, Engineer Book Series
iQ: smartparent (many episodes about STEM)