On January 8, Million Women Mentors launched an ambitious initiative to find a million women working in science, technology, engineering and mathematics careers to become mentors for young women. They’ve already had 44,000 experienced professionals sign up to help, either through in-person or online mentoring or by providing internships or job opportunities.
Million Women Mentors is collaborating with 42 partner organizations, including 4-H, Girls Inc., and the Girl Scouts, who will connect them with girls seeking mentorship. They’ve also lined up corporate sponsors such as Walmart, Cisco and General Motors.
The unprecedented joint effort behind Million Women Mentors seeks to turn around some troubling statistics: women earn 60 percent of undergraduate degrees, but only 11 percent of computer science degrees. And women make up nearly half the American work force, but only hold 24 percent of the jobs in STEM fields. Julie Kantor, chief partnership officer for STEMconnector, says that the trouble starts in middle school when girls who are naturally interested in science begin to feel that they don’t fit in science classes because the number of other girls taking them decrease. “That’s when ‘I hate math, I hate science’ starts for girls,” Kantor told Gregory M. Lamb of the Christian Science Monitor. With the help of the Million Women Mentors initiative, hopefully we’ll put the days of Barbie dolls saying “Math class is tough!” long behind us.
MORE: Teach Her to Raise a Goat, and She Just Might End Up a Scientist
Tag: Girls in STEM
This Teacher is Helping Young Girls Literally Build Their Way to a Better Future
Emily Pilloton needed to teach fundamental social and life skills to her students, so the teacher and designer did that the only way she knew how — through an innovative, hands-on shop class.
Now, the shop class has followed her from Bertie County, N.C., to Berkeley, Calif., where she founded Camp H, an after-school camp that teaches design and building skills to girls 9 to 12 years old. Why girls? Pilloton told Slate she noticed her male students were more willing to readily tackle problems while female students usually wanted a set of directions or steps before attempting the project. “There aren’t enough spaces for girls to be together as girls doing things that feel audacious,” Pilloton told Slate. “I don’t want girls to just be given a hammer and say ‘You’re holding a hammer, that’s awesome!’ I want to teach them how to weld. And to work on projects that don’t feel artsy and craftsy. Not like straight-up wood shop, but to balance the creative and the artistic side.”
Pilloton is now teaching an after-school class that will teach girls “to fix the things that need repair, installation, and maintenance in our everyday lives,” which will include checking the air pressure in tires, fun experiments and core math and science concepts — subjects that students often become bored with during Pilloton’s target age group. In the future, the program plans to have students build furniture and lighting for women’s shelters.
“I want the projects either to have a personal connection or to teach the girls about being a citizen,” Pilloton told Slate. “I will never ever just give a girl or a student a set of plans and tell her to follow instructions.”
MORE: The Minerva Project: An Online College to Rival the Ivy League
If We Want More Women in Science, We’re Going to Have to Train Them. Here’s How to Do It
Washington University in St. Louis has established itself as a leading scientific institution with such initiatives as the Human Genome Project. Now the school is supporting a new project that could be just as revolutionary: fostering the next generation of female scientists. The university is sponsoring a girls-only charter school focused on science and engineering, projected to open in St. Louis in August 2015, and here’s the revolutionary part—it won’t cost students a dime. A combination of private donors and public funding will finance the school, which hopes to enroll 500 students a year by 2020, although it’s starting with only sixth and seventh graders.
Hawthorn’s founder, Mary Danforth Stillman, told Diane Toroian Keaggy of Washington University:
“The single-sex option is out there for people who can pay, and now we are saying, ‘Let’s provide that option to students with limited financial resources.’ At Hawthorn, every leadership role will be filled by a girl. Every classroom discussion will be led by a girl. Hawthorn girls will be encouraged to reach their highest potential in and out of the classroom, and our faculty and staff will provide the support and encouragement they need to realize that potential.”
How’s that for girl power?