On a humid, overcast Tuesday afternoon, a bus pulled up to P.S. 230 in the Kensington neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. The BioBus — which is actually a sleek silver science lab on wheels — had already hosted several classes that morning, all in the name of getting students excited about science. On a typical weekday, BioBus hosts six 45-minute classes for up to 30 children. That day at P.S. 230, they were scheduled to teach 23 students.
Community scientists Mollie Thurman and Rosemary Puckett, instructors on the BioBus team, moseyed their way around the bus as the kids examined daphnia, a water flea too small to be visible to the naked eye, through their collection of microscopes. Thurman and Puckett broke down the different parts of the tiny organism during the class. “I love being able to share the clarity of understanding [with the students]. It’s very exciting,” Puckett said.
The microscope is not just a tool to the BioBus team: It’s central to what they do. “[Microscopes teach] that inherent lesson that how you look with your eyes is not all the ways you can see,” Puckett added. And she meant this quite literally: Some of the kids got to see what their own eyes looked like under a microscope, by peering through a microscope on a rolling camera attached to a monitor.
According to the BioBus staff, more than 250,000 K-12 students have boarded their bus since it was founded in 2008, and have experienced hands-on learning with the kind of microscopes you’d normally find in a high-caliber lab. Part of its appeal is helping students understand what science is, outside of the dry material you’d normally find in a textbook. “It’s so engaging,” Thurman said. “Kids sometimes say it’s not like their regular classes.”
BioBus’s goal is to make science interesting and accessible to students at an early age, with a focus on students in low-income and underserved communities. According to a 2018 study by The Pew Research Center, only 9 percent of African-Americans and 7 percent of Hispanic workers have careers in STEM fields. While the study also found that 45 percent of STEM workers surveyed felt that this was because those groups weren’t encouraged at an early age to pursue that career path, they also attribute these rates to a lack of educational opportunities.
Puckett says their mobile lab exists to bridge that gap, bringing hands-on science education to communities that otherwise would not have access to it. After each class, the instructors provide surveys to each school, which teachers are invited to complete anonymously. The consensus: Most schools have found that BioBus is a great opportunity for students to interact with real scientists and have the “wow” experience of using research-grade technology that many schools can’t afford.
While BioBus currently works with underserved schools in New York City, the problem isn’t unique to schools in that area: According to a 2016 report from the nonprofit EdBuild, school districts nationwide serving students of color received a shocking $23 billion less than mostly white school districts with the same number of students.
For now, the BioBus model seems to be working: According to Tessa Hirschfeld-Stoler, one of BioBus’s community scientists, members of their high school internship program have been accepted and enrolled in top research universities such as NYU, Harvard, Cornell and Columbia to pursue careers in science.
If other cities are able to follow their lead, BioBus could potentially set a national model for mobile education by offering students the opportunity for lessons beyond what’s offered in their school’s curricula. To Puckett, the desire to learn isn’t dependent on your geography: “The same thirst for these kind of activities are everywhere,” she said. “It gives us a reason to want to grow.”
More: Science Education Isn’t Working. Here’s What Will.
Tag: science
They Found a Way to Use Science in the Fight for Human Rights – and It’s Working
Public health crises. Climate change. Refugee trauma and violence. Human rights groups face daunting tasks that often require swift action, yet they also need to ensure that those actions are informed by scientific fact.
“One of the things I’ve told human rights organizations when I’ve worked with them is without the data, you’re just a person with an opinion,” says Mary Gray, a statistician and lawyer at American University.
That’s where the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) comes in: Last year, the organization launched the On Call Scientists Hotline, a free service that pairs volunteers with experience in fields like forensic chemistry, public health, refugee trauma and food/environmental toxins, with human rights practitioners looking to back up their findings with science. The volunteers can help analyze research findings, review technical reports, assist with filling gaps in data, and so on, to help each group make stronger arguments in service of advancing human rights.
Not only does this approach help groups like the 11th Hour Project and Amnesty International prioritize next steps, it also helps them plan more efficiently to navigate future crises.
To learn more about how you can volunteer for or donate to the AAAS, watch the video above.
More: When the American Dream Becomes Human Rights Abuse
Sucking Carbon Out of the Air Is One Way to Help Save Our Planet
Swiss company Climeworks has developed a system to remove carbon dioxide from the air and keep it from being re-released into the atmosphere.
Their technology uses a process called direct air capture, which processes air through filters that can capture and trap carbon dioxide. The air exits the system with 90 percent less carbon than air entering the system. At a geothermal plant in Iceland, Climeworks technology has been used to create the world’s first negative emission power plant, which removes more CO2 from the air than it produces.
While captured carbon can be used to create carbon-neutral fuel, plastic and a range of other materials, the Iceland plant has found a way to inject it underground and transform it into stone, preventing the carbon from being re-released into the atmosphere for millions of years.
So far, direct air capture is only a small part of the global effort to mitigate climate change. It is currently prohibitively expensive and small in scale, but is developing quickly and attracting funding from power investors like Bill Gates.
For the world to meet the goals laid out in the Paris Agreement, we’ll very likely need to not only reduce carbon emissions but also remove emissions from the air. Direct air capture plants like Climeworks and others aim to do so while providing jobs and powering a “new, clean economy.”
Watch the video above to see the new technology in action.
Homepage photo by Arni Saeberg.
MORE: Can the U.S. Continue to Reduce Its Carbon Emissions?
Want Your Kid to Pursue Science? Have Them Dress the Part
In order to encourage more of the nation’s young people to pursue careers in science, it pays to help them dress the part.
That is the key finding of a study we conducted recently to determine what kind of effect a simple article of clothing – in this case white lab coats – have on students’ confidence in their ability to do science. We also wanted to know if lab coats help students see themselves as scientists and aspire to science careers.
We are science education researchers interested in understanding how the symbols and tools of science can promote students’ interest in studying science.
This is an important topic because jobs in science, technology, engineering and math — or STEM jobs — are not only important for the economy, but are also growing faster and pay more than many other fields.
Although the number of jobs in STEM fields are increasing, the number of people choosing to major in those fields remains below what is needed to fill the positions.
THE POWER OF CLOTHING
In order to encourage more young people to choose to major in STEM fields and pursue STEM careers, we believe it is important to help them see themselves as someone who can be successful in those fields. One item often associated with scientists is the white lab coat.
Clothing can be a powerful tool for changing one’s self-image, as seen in previous studies of the effects of suits and lab coats on adults.
In an effort to help students see themselves as scientists and as individuals who can be successful in science, we conducted a study that put students in lab coats for science instruction. Our team worked with five fifth-grade teachers from four rural schools who taught at least two science classes.
SAME LESSONS, DIFFERENT ATTIRE
For each teacher, students in one of the classes wore lab coats for at least 10 class periods over the course of two months. The other class did not wear lab coats. The teachers taught the same lessons to each class to minimize the differences between teachers. The participants were interviewed before and after the 10 lessons and also took a pre- and post-survey that explored many factors, such as their sense of self as a scientist, their confidence in their skills related to science, and whether they had career goals related to STEM fields.
For the 110 youth in the group who didn’t wear lab coats, there were no statistically significant changes in their responses from the pretest to post-test for any question on the written survey. However, for the students who wore the lab coats, there was a significant increase in their perceptions of whether others see them as scientists.
More specifically, of the 72 students who wore lab coats, 47 percent changed their responses on the post-survey to indicate they feel like others see them as someone who likes science.
Also, of the 42 lab coat–wearing students who had low levels of confidence in their science skills, 45 percent changed their responses on the post-test to positive responses. Another 36 percent of the students in lab coats with low levels of self-confidence did not change their response from the pre- to post-test but this included the students who already felt they had high levels of recognition.
POSITIVE EFFECTS
To test for performance and competence in science, students were asked questions such as “I think I am good at science” and “I am good at using science tools like thermometers, rulers or magnifying glasses.” The youth who wore lab coats but had low levels of self-confidence had a significant increase in their responses to these questions. More specifically, 60 percent of the students changed their answer from disagree to agree.
To test for career aspirations, the students were asked questions such as “I would like to have a job that uses science.” For the students wearing the lab coats who had low confidence in their science skills, 50 percent changed their answers from disagree to agree.
A WORTHY INVESTMENT
The bottom line: is that for youth who initially had low levels of confidence in their science skills, the lab coats had a significant improvement in their beliefs in their abilities, their levels of recognition and their science career aspirations.
Of course, lab coats cannot supplant a solid science education. At the same time, these simple articles of clothing may represent an inexpensive way to help more young people get interested in science and see themselves as future scientists.
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Megan Ennes is a graduate research assistant and M. Gail Jones is a professor of STEM education, both at North Carolina State University. This article was originally published on The Conversation.
What an Epidemic Among Frogs Can Teach Us About Human Disease
This past year’s deadlier-than-usual flu season cost the U.S. an estimated $15 billion in lost productivity, as millions of infected workers called out sick. And as the Zika outbreak proved in 2016, there is reason to be worried that we aren’t doing enough to prepare for whatever infectious disease comes at us next.
To that end, scientists are turning to an unlikely ally in hopes of learning how to prevent, or quash, the next global health threat: the lowly amphibian.
In the late 1990s a deadly fungal pathogen ravaged millions of amphibians around the world, leading to catastrophic losses among their populations. But researchers recently found that a few species of frogs in Central America, which were thought to be extinct, have rebounded and, in some cases, developed even stronger defenses against the infection.
The study, published last month in the journal Science, looked at how the froggy fungal disease, called chytridiomycosis, went from epidemic levels, when an infectious disease introduces itself quickly and affects large populations, to an endemic, or the point at which the disease becomes commonplace. The fungus is still around and as deadly as ever, suggesting that some frogs have evolved to create resistance to the disease.
“If you’ve ever held a frog or toad, people have that experience of it being a slimy animal. That’s because they have these secretions as a defense mechanism,” says biologist Jamie Voyles, an assistant professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, who led the multiyear study. “Amphibian skin is actually a very complex physiological organ, so in addition to water absorption, there are also these secretions that are helpful to the immune system and are really good at inhibiting pathogens.”
Perhaps the most interesting takeaway from the study, though, can be gleaned by examining what happens to populations — and the disease itself — after an epidemic, which can inform how we to respond to human-spread diseases in the future.
“Historically, we’ve viewed infectious diseases as being able to shift over time, but we haven’t fully clarified how that works,” says Voyles. “Think of the more notorious cases of influenza, or similar kinds of outbreaks, where there is a large panic and high mutation rate, and where we know that the virus is changing all the time from one strain to the next.”
An example of this disconnect between what happens during an outbreak and what happens afterward is the 2015 Ebola pandemic, which sparked widespread media hysteria and killed more than 11,000 people.
“There is a drop-off in attention paid to host populations after an outbreak,” she says. “We tend to do a lot of hand-waving when an epidemic is going on, but [we don’t much] hear about follow-up in [terms of] understanding the disease after an outbreak.”
By continuing to examine how outbreaks affect wildlife after the fact, we might be in a better position to contain epidemics among humans in the future, says Voyles.
“If we understand the mechanistic underpinnings of how outbreaks happen, then we can apply those lessons to how we respond to other emerging infectious diseases,” she says.
The threat of a devastating global pandemic is increasingly worrisome for public health experts. They point to the lack of preparedness among some nations, even as others, such as the U.S. and China, have established rapid-response teams to swiftly deal with an emergency.
Or as Jimmy Whitworth, a professor at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine put it, “We’re only as secure in the world as the weakest country.”
And as the worldwide population grows and people pack themselves into ever-denser urban areas, as well as expand to regions previously inhabited only by wildlife, the opportunity for the spread of catastrophic diseases is only increasing.
More worrisome still: As the global stakes rise, funding in the U.S. is being cut.
The Trump administration’s fiscal plan for 2018 slashes millions of dollars from the Centers for Disease Control’s budget, which has led the agency to roll back its efforts in global-disease prevention by 80 percent.
“[Outbreaks and infectious diseases] are not problems that are going away,” Voyles says. “It’s an increasingly connected world, and what that means is that we’re going to be moving more pathogens all around the globe.”
The current situation, much like amphibians themselves, is, in a word, slippery, where preparedness for pandemics is taking a backseat to other economic priorities. Our best hope, then, might just lie with the frogs and what they can teach us about winning the war on global disease.
Why Behavioral Science Has Become the Next Big Thing for Solving Society’s Problems
Ever since Dr. Stanley Milgram conducted his notorious experiment in the early 1960s, in which he asked participants to obediently administer a high-voltage “shock” to a victim, researchers have uncovered a wealth of fascinating insights into the human mind. But much of this study has been confined to laboratories and academia. As managing director at ideas42, NationSwell Council member Alissa Fishbane is bucking that trend by applying the lessons from behavioral science to the social sector. At ideas42, her team advises governments and nonprofits about how to better structure their programs in education, healthcare, criminal justice, finance and energy based on what we know about human psychology. NationSwell spoke to Fishbane at her office in Lower Manhattan.
What is behavioral science, and why is it so important for policymakers to understand?
Behavioral sciences are really pulling together all the research in social psychology, neuroscience and behavioral economics. This field is so important because people often behave in ways that are strange and peculiar. You want to go to the gym five times a week, you want to stay on this diet and you want to save more for retirement. Why isn’t that happening? We all tell ourselves what we want to do, then it doesn’t quite happen. Why not? We as human beings struggle to follow through on certain decisions, particularly things that are very important to us. But programs and policies in the social sector are often created in ways that don’t account for this fundamental aspect, how we behave as humans. That’s really where we come in.
What’s an example of how this looks in practice?
One thing we’re looking at is how to help students complete college. There’s been a lot of great work in this area, but we’ve taken a different approach, which is the holistic student experience. How do we take the pulse of a student as they go through the process, day-to-day and semester-to-semester? How do we understand their various decisions, actions, habits? Knowing that there are constant hurdles a student needs to jump over — “Did I apply? Did I matriculate? Did I get my aid? Did I study? Did I pass?” — even a small one can trip them up. The solution isn’t any one piece; it’s creating a system that supports them throughout all of their college years.
It can be very simple, like reminders to complete the FAFSA. With something that small, we almost doubled the early application rate at one university we worked with. We also take on tougher problems, like working with a college to figure out how to keep students from dropping out in the first year. We realized a big part of the problem for students was feeling like they didn’t belong on campus. For that, we embedded a video into orientation showing how lots of other students went through similar challenges, the way they overcame them and how thrilled they are now to be there. We were able to raise the retention rate from 83 to 91 percent, which is pretty amazing, just by understanding what these students experienced.
What kinds of issues have you worked on locally, in New York City?
Summons are tickets for low-level infractions that people get for things like having an open container of alcohol in public or riding a bike on the sidewalk. Lots of people are getting these tickets — big city, you know, lots going on — but what’s really scary is that if you get a ticket and don’t show up to court, a bench warrant is put out for you. The next time you have any sort of encounter with police, you will be arrested immediately and put in jail. Almost 40 percent of New Yorkers aren’t showing up, which is an extraordinarily high number. That’s really concerning because for families that don’t have flexible jobs, it’s hugely disruptive. Even if you’re out in 24 hours, you could lose your job. And it’s even worse if you’re undocumented.
We partnered with the mayor’s office, the NYPD and a state entity, the Office of Court Administration, to change what the ticket looks like. Even changing the title makes it clearer. Before it said “Complaint/Information”; now, it says “Criminal Court Appearance Ticket.” Instead of a date and time in chicken-scratch on the back, that info is now at the top along with writing that says that you will get an arrest warrant if you don’t show up.
Then, their next touch point is 12 weeks later. Most people think they have plenty of time, but they forget, lose the ticket or don’t put the date in their calendar. We’re coupling the revised form with a series of text-message reminders. We know people need to ask for time off work, so it comes a week ahead of time to help them plan. In case they forgot, it comes three days before. Then, it comes the day before.
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Are there any ethical dilemmas to watch out for in applying behavioral research to policy?
No matter how you design anything, consciously or unconsciously, you create an outcome. The way anything is built, just in its structure, is nudging people one way or another. We try to de-bias that and help people make the decision they want to be making. In the social sector, we’re really focused on how we help people move from intention to action. So we’re not trying to tell people, “Now, do this,” but rather, helping them follow through.
How do you apply these insights to your own life?
We don’t realize everything else that’s going on in the lives of others; we don’t see the full picture of anyone’s environment. It’s easy to say, “I can’t believe you didn’t make it to the gym five times,” but then you don’t either. I can make these assumptions like, “Oh, she doesn’t have discipline,” but then come up with an excuse for my own lack of discipline. Understanding human behavior makes us more generous about others and ourselves. I’ve become much more forgiving of myself, knowing that lots of these things are funny quirks about human behavior.
To learn more about the NationSwell Council, click here.
The Strange Bedfellows Working to Save the Honeybee, Why Uber Is Getting in the Business of Public Transit and More
A Swarm of Controversy, WIRED
Can environmentalists and Big Agriculture come together to save honeybees? It’s a question Jerry Hayes, a former hive inspector turned Monsanto scientist, asks constantly. As conservationists blame Hayes’s company for colony collapse, he asks humans to learn something from the bees: how to cooperate for the hive’s sake.
Welcome to Uberville, The Verge
An experiment in an Orlando suburb could change the face of public transit. As part of a contract between Altamonte Springs, Fla. and Uber, local government subsidizes intra-city rides with the startup and fronts additional funds when connecting with mass transit. Critics argue that the plan isn’t accessible to low-income and disabled riders, but Altamonte officials say the deal was the only affordable way to connect the suburb’s sprawl.
Chicago Tackles Youth Unemployment As It Wrestles with Its Consequences, Chicago Tribune
Applying for a first job in Chicago can feel “like trying to go across Lake Michigan,” insiders say. Rap sheets or typo-laden résumés can ward off employers, and inaccessible transit through high-crime areas can discourage adolescents — disconnecting 41 percent of the Second City’s 18–24 year olds from work or school. Fortunately, a bevy of groups are helping this vulnerable group land work.
Investing in Future Innovation: This Visionary Program Gets Students Hooked on STEM
In calculus class, you’d never use the phrase “star student” to describe Chris Deyo. He was slow to complete assignments about strange-sounding concepts like solids of revolution and related rates, staying behind to get extra help as his classmates jeered that the subject just “sucks.” To them, all they needed to know was enough to pass the test. After several after-school sessions, Deyo learned upper-level math well enough to tutor his peers. But instead of teaching straight out of the thick textbook like many teachers do, he showed how the lessons related other subjects. “The same kids who were saying they hate math could do it and were good at it when taught in a method that they identified with,” he noticed, causing him to wonder, “Is it really math or the way we’re teaching?”
Feeling accomplished, Deyo headed to the University of Texas at Austin with the thought, “I love [teaching and math] so much, I should try to make a living out of it.” There, he signed up for UTeach, a national program training math and science majors to become high school instructors. After graduating from UTeach last spring, Deyo began teaching math at a charter school in Austin. Frequently seen wearing a bowtie, the 23-year-old Deyo doesn’t look much older than the seniors in his calculus class. But he hopes to get them interested by teaching in ways that suit them, rather than just lecturing to teens that have tuned him out already. “From a young age, I realized those are the teachers that are making a difference,” he says.
Bored and intimidated by math and science, American teenagers are disengaged from the classes that prepare them for today’s tech-driven labor force — making UTeach needed now more than ever. The United States ranks a disappointing 35th in math and 27th in science out of 65 countries. Recruiting STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) majors who often arrive at college with no intention of teaching, these undergraduates “represent the most promising pool from which to draw future teachers,” says Kimberly Hughes, director of UTeach Institute, who expanded the UTeach model from eight Texas colleges to 35 more partner universities nationwide.
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No high schooler is eager to do math problems without end, which is why UTeach trains its teachers to create hands-on, collaborative, real-world projects (a teaching method dubbed “project-based learning”) that are exciting to both educators and pupils. Recently, instead of solving systems of equations on the whiteboard, Deyo divided his class into groups and asked them to develop the problems themselves. Groups came up with equations that involved splitting pizza, controlling the amount of money spent on clothes and even comparing Spotify, TIDAL and other music-streaming services. “We try to be a student-led program, where students are taking initiative for their own learning,” Deyo says, speaking with a fast cadence, the enthusiasm about his students emanating in quick sentences. “They are coming up with the questions they want to answer.”
In response to the shortage of STEM professionals in our country, UTeach has already certified 2,676 instructors and is certifying 6,280 more in the next four years — just one of many ways it’s placing valuable 21st-century skills at the center of today’s education.
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Case in point: Manor New Technology High School, a secondary magnet public school in Manor, Texas that employs only UTeach educators for math and science classes, is using project-based learning to instill a love of STEM in an unlikely student body. Unlike most STEM-focused magnet schools, Manor New Tech opened in 2007 to provide 21st-century-learning skills to economically disadvantaged minority students. These teenagers are statistically expected to be behind their white peers in biology (26 points for blacks, 16 for Hispanics), as well as in algebra (13 points for blacks, four for Hispanics). Yet, Manor New Tech eradicates the achievement gap to match state test scores in math and far exceed them in science, despite comparatively lower scores in the surrounding district.
Impressive? Yes. But for schools nationwide to replicate those results, a huge influx of passionate STEM educators is desperately needed. UTeach-trained instructors staff at least 1,120 schools in 34 states, but 43 states and the District of Columbia are short math or science teachers. Filling that gap will only happen as UTeach expands, Hughes believes. “Leveraging the universities in our country as places from which to prepare excellent math and science teachers is key to addressing the shortage of teachers nationwide,” she explains.
Statistics tell the numerical story of UTeach’s impact. But Deyo’s ability to convince math- and science-loving young people to be teachers is how the program truly creates a lasting impression. Problem solving ignites a passion inside Deyo, but more than that, he loves “seeing other people appreciate and fall in love with math and see the value in it. That’s what makes me want to teach.”
“Math, as a whole, to me is one big puzzle,” Deyo says. There may be one final right answer most of the time, but there are so many ways to arrive at it. UTeach may not be the only way to improve STEM education in America, but it’s clearly one of those vital pieces.
This article is part of the What’s Possible series produced by NationSwell and Comcast NBCUniversal, which shines a light on changemakers who are creating opportunities to help people and communities thrive in a 21st century world. These social entrepreneurs and their future forward ideas represent what’s possible when people come together to create solutions that connect, educate and empower others and move America forward.
What’s the Outcome of Combining Science with Business Savvy? Transformative Ideas
There’s plenty of startups chasing energy innovation, but the part that’s often forgotten is the scientists behind these solutions, who pore over research for years and are permanently fixated over microscopes. These researchers are the foundation of our future — but they’re also unequipped with the business acumen or the political wherewithal to transition their work into commercial ventures.
But if you’re one of these budding scientists (and not Elon Musk) looking to save the world, the Resnick Institute at the California Institute of Technology may be your next stop. With a $30 million endowment, the newfangled program accepted its first class of postdoctoral fellows earlier this month.
“Energy is a challenging thing to develop infrastructure for, so it’s not really suited for the venture mindset,” says Neil Fromer, the executive director of the program. “But there are innovative ways to fund early-stage ideas.”
Plucked from around the world, the four fellows will focus on transformative energy solutions that are typically ignored by venture capitals looking for a sound return on investment, but have the potential to change the world. Such ideas include green chemical synthesis, fuel efficient vehicles and energy conversion research on batteries and fuel cells, according to a press release.
While there’s no shortage of bright ideas and big solutions, the tricky part is translating the dense language into a sexy, business pitch for potential investors. The Caltechstaff will not only work with students on developing their work into potential commercial ventures, but with the help of their own funding source, the pressure is off to produce immediate results.
“In some ways we’re trying to reclaim the thought leadership on this issue,” Fromer tells Fast Company.
While Caltech is not home to the only sustainability institute, by focusing on the intersection of science, business and technology, it may be the one that can save the world.
MORE: Get Schooled on How to Earn a Computer Science Education for Free
These Computer Science Programs Have Just What Women Want
The likes of Marie Curie and Jane Goodall may have set great examples for future female scientists, and it’s time that more women follow in their footsteps — especially when it comes to computer science.
For all the jobs available in the industry and programs to train workers for it, a mere 18 percent of computer science graduates in the United States are women. Can we balance out the gender gap amongst computer scientists? Some of the top institutions of higher learning have already started, according to The New York Times.
At Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Computer Science, 40 percent of incoming freshmen are women, and almost a third of computer science graduates this year were women at the University of Washington. And that’s not all. Harvey Mudd College in California boasts that 40 percent of their computer science program enrollees are female and this year, more than half of their engineering school graduates were women — a first for the school.
As promising as these numbers are, these three schools represent only a fraction of the computer science programs in the country. The question remains – what’s their secret, and how can it spread to every school?
Unsurprisingly, there is no cure-all, but one general trend is helping out everywhere: With so many professional opportunities for computer science majors, the field in general is attracting more students — regardless of gender.
But what sets Carnegie Mellon, University of Washington, and Harvey Mudd apart is that they are grabbing potential students when they’re younger by promoting computer science at an earlier age. By hosting summer camps and training high school teachers to teach computer science, girls are more likely to gain exposure to the discipline and develop a lifelong interest in it.
Another tactic used by these schools is revamping their marketing and support systems. Harvey Mudd, for example, has featured female students in their brochures to show that it’s normal for girls to study science. “We made it very clear that being a female scientist, that’s normal,” said Maria Klawe, president of Harvey Mudd. Plus, the school now talks about computer science as a way to problem solve (as opposed to it simply being about technical coding), putting an emphasis on its practical applications.
At Carnegie Mellon, the requirement to have prior experience in order to enter the major was eliminated and an official student mentorship program was established. By removing barriers and easing the process of becoming a computer science major, more women are showing interest.
Good news is, this can be easily replicated elsewhere.
As Lenore Blum, a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon told The New York Times, “I don’t think we’re doing anything that nobody else could do, but it has to be sustained and institutionalized.”
If other schools picked up some tips from this trend-setting trio, America could be well on its way to unlocking a whole new set of minds for computer science.
MORE: Can Google Crack the Code for More Female Computer Scientists?