empowering women, girls and their families to achieve equal opportunities in their personal and professional lives
Marilyn Reece, Civil Engineer
What do you do when you like math but don’t want to become a teacher? You could be a civil engineer, like Marilyn Reece.
She was the first woman to be a fully-licensed civil engineer in California and she’s featured in our May calendar of women trailblazers in science, tech, engineering and math.
Let’s kick off Monday with an awesome woman in STEM!
(via gender-and-science)
Source: californiastatelibrary
With workshops like “CSI New Haven,” “Hybrid Vehicle Demonstration,” and “Assessing Pain in Hospitalized Patients” (all pictured above), CWEALF’s STEM Expo at Gateway Community College on Friday was a success!
In the spirit of Pi day, did you know that some recent studies have addressed the myth of gender and math performance? Common myths tell the tale that girls just aren’t as good at math, but researchers suggest this just isn’t so. In reality, a more complex constellation of cultural factors may be at work.
Professors Kane and Mertz from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater comprehensively explored math performance among girls and boys. They tackled the “greater male variability hypothesis”, which states that math ability among males varies more widely (males at very high and very low ability) than math ability among females. In order to see if this hypothesis held weight, they gathered data from over 80 countries around the world and compared the variability of boys’ and girls’ math performance.
Results of their study showed that the variability of ability between genders varied by country. For example, Kane and Mertz indicated that, in Taiwan, eight grader boys’ score varied much more widely than did girls; yet they found that, in Morocco, boys and girls had equal experiences and patterns of school attendance) contribute to variability. In those countries in which women have a high labor force participation rate, and have a small gender wage gap, girls have the highest math scores.
“In summary, gender equity and other socio-cultural factors, nor national income, school type or religion per se, are the primary determinants of mathematics performance at all levels for both girls and boys”.
To read their research, see the American Mathematical Society
To learn more about CWEALF’s work with girls and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) go to our website
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Photo by Paul Smith (originally posted to Flickr as Pi pie) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
It’s Girl Scout cookie season! While you’re off ordering (or dreaming about the delivery of) those rich, decadent Thin Mints, let’s celebrate some of the other reasons why Girl Scouts of Connecticut (and nationwide) are awesome.
1. It’s sort of like the younger sister to CWEALF. If you’ve never been a Girl Scout, you might not know just how closely the organization’s mission lines up with Connecticut Women’s Education and Legal Fund’s. Girl Scouts of Connecticut’s website (where all stats and facts used in this article can be found) talks all about how it aims to “builds girls of courage, confidence, and character, who make the world a better place.” Sound familiar? If so, that’s probably because those young girls could easily become advocates for CWEALF, which has the mission of “empowering women, girls and their families to achieve equal opportunities in their personal and professional lives.”
2. It reaches out to 65,000 girls and adults each year. In fact, their reach is so far and so influential that the organization has been recognized by CWEALF for its efforts. Last year, Jennifer Smith Turner, president and CEO for Girl Scouts of Connecticut, was named one of the 2012 Marie Miller Stewart Awardees. Smith Turner helped to ensure that each Girl Scout reaches her full potential.
3. It encourages girls to become interested in the government. It’s never too early to get young women interested in politics, and the Girl Scouts of CT take that notion very seriously. In fact, they will be taking a trip to Connecticut’s capitol on Feb. 27, where they’ll speak with legislators and participate in workshops. I see a future president of CWEALF (and maybe even the U.S.) in the making.
4. It helps make science, technology, engineering, and math (also known as STEM) accessible. Girl Scouts of CT provides ample opportunities for its young members to get involved in fields of interest often geared toward boys; there are astronomy clubs, LEGO leagues, and chemistry groups the girls can join. G2O, a program by CWEALF, does the same. G2O - it stands for Generating Girls’ Opportunities - brings STEM to high school girls and helps them transform an interest into a future.
5. The cookies. We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention Girl Scouts are amazing because of the delicious goods they sell each year. More importantly, however, is the message and lessons behind the cookie sales. Girl Scouts of CT - and CWEALF, for that matter - are all about providing women with the opportunities to be self-sufficient, strong, and knowledgeable. The Girl Scouts cookie program is a chance to do that. Its five goals include strengthening each girl’s ability to set goals, make decisions, manage money, deal with people, and consider the ethics of business - all skills that extend far beyond a simple cookie sale.
Next time you’re thinking of purchasing a box Samoas, remind yourself of why Girl Scouts is such a lovely program - and feel free to add an extra box to your order (for the greater good!).
Photo by bamalibrarylady, “God bless vegan girl scout cookies!” 2/2/13. Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic License.
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Crystal Maldonado is a writer by day, and super-feminist by night. Find her on Twitter @crysmaldonado, or check out her new online magazine, Positively-Smitten.com.
CWEALF currently has 16 volunteers, some of which are pictured above. They help us with a variety of projects whether it’s tracking legislation, staffing our Information and Referral line, coordinating our STEM Expos, or updating this blog! We couldn’t do all the work we do without their help and we are very grateful to them. While many will be celebrating Valentine’s Day with their special someone, here at CWEALF we have dubbed this week Volunteer Appreciation Week to celebrate the people we love most - our volunteers!
Many adults are put off when youngsters pose scientific questions. Children ask why the sun is yellow, or what a dream is, or how deep you can dig a hole, or when is the world’s birthday, or why we have toes. Too many teachers and parents answer with irritation or ridicule, or quickly move on to something else. Why adults should pretend to omniscience before a five-year-old, I can’t for the life of me understand. What’s wrong with admitting that you don’t know? Children soon recognize that somehow this kind of question annoys many adults. A few more experiences like this, and another child has been lost to science.
There are many better responses. If we have an idea of the answer, we could try to explain. If we don’t, we could go to the encyclopedia or the library. Or we might say to the child: “I don’t know the answer. Maybe no one knows. Maybe when you grow up, you’ll be the first to find out.”
"Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as the Candle in The Dark (via skaterboytae)
Great quote to start Monday with! :)
(via girlengineer)
Lise Meitner was an Austrian-born physicist who is now known as “the mother of the atomic bomb” despite never being fully recognized for her contributions to the theory of nuclear physics and being denied a Nobel Prize. Lise was born in 1878, but because she was female was unable to attend university in Austria until 1901, when she attended the University of Vienna. There she studied physics under Ludwig Boltzmann, who inspired in her a great love of life’s mysteries - and the idea that physics was the key to unlocking them all. In 1907 she began work with Max Planck and Otto Hahn, studying the makeup and reactions of radioactive elements. Meitner and Hahn would continue to collaborate for 30 years. When Germany annexed Austria in 1938 Meitner, who was born Jewish but had converted to Protestantism, emigrated to Stockholm. There she was without collaborators or laboratory equipment, and so was forced to try to solve physics puzzles through little other than correspondence.
On November 13, 1938, Hahn met secretly with Meitner in Copenhagen. At her suggestion, Hahn and Strassmann performed further tests on a uranium product they thought was radium. When they found that it was in fact barium, they published their results in Naturwissenschaften (January 6, 1939). Simultaneously, Meitner and Frisch explained (and named) nuclear fission, using Bohr’s “liquid drop” model of the nucleus; their paper appeared in Nature (February 11, 1939). The proof of fission required Meitner’s and Frisch’s physical insight as much as the chemical findings of Hahn and Strassmann. (s)In 1945, Otto Hahn alone was named as the recipient of the Nobel Prize for the discovery of nuclear fission, with Meitner’s tremendous contributions being either overlooked or ignored. Although she and Hahn were jointly awarded the US Fermi Prize in 1966, her exclusion from the Nobel Prize is noted as “one of the most glaring examples of women’s scientific achievement overlooked by the Nobel committee.” Meitnerium, element 109 on the periodic table, is named in her honor.
Yet another awesome woman!
(via girlengineer)
Source: awesomewomen
Generating Girls’ Opportunities (G2O) CWEALF’s latest initiative designed to engage girls, parents, and teachers in expanding girls’ educational opportunities. Under G2O, CWEALF plans and implements more than five Girls & STEM Expos every year, serving approximately 600 girls and their teachers. Each one-day Expo is held at a local college or university and consists of hands-on workshops and team-building exercises led by women in STEM careers.
This year, CWEALF is having a G2O T-Shirt Contest. Click the link above for more info!
An article came out in June describing the gender gap in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) careers. Women are less likely to hold jobs in these careers and the numbers show how wide this difference really is. Only 1 in every seven engineers is a woman. Only 27 percent of computer science jobs are held by women. Even more surprising is that there has been no improvement over the last 12 years. So, why is this happening and how can it be fixed? If 60 percent of bachelor degrees are held by women than why are less than 20 percent of women holding them in computer science?
The article gives three ideas on ways to help women stop this cycle and gain entrance into STEM careers. First, programs need to be implemented that encourage women to study technology. Second, the early education system needs to be looked at. Girls need to be equally involved in these types of activities as boys. Lastly, by showing more women holding jobs in STEM careers the stereotype of who is and can do the jobs will be challenged. CWEALF encourages girls to look into STEM careers through G2O (Generating Girls’ Opportunities). G2O implements Girls and STEM expos every year to help girls have a better understanding of STEM careers.
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Written by Erin Taylor. Erin is a MSW student at UConn and an intern at the Connecticut Women’s Education and Legal Fund (CWEALF).
