Imagine Your STEM Future

Just last week, the Girl Scouts of the USA (GSUSA) announced Imagine Your STEM Future, a national activity series designed to engage high school girls in and inspire them toward careers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). Can I get a whoo-yeah!

As stated by PR Newswire, the activity series consists of four flexible units the pique girls' interest in STEM career and helps them begin to match their interests and skills with jobs in high-demand sectors. The new program will be open for schools or other hosting sites to have in place in just a couple of weeks as girls return to school.

The four core units of Imagine Your STEM Future can be delivered over four to eight activity-filled sessions and even has additional extensions and online activities. In the core program, girls:

• team up to do STEM experiments,
• learn about and meet female scientists who can serve as role models,
• explore STEM careers and how scientists make the world a better place, 
• conduct STEM activities alongside their peers,
• learn to serve as leaders to help out other girls get involved in STEM.

Another perk of this program is that girls can do all of the STEM experiments in the core program units with objects from their everyday life and the guidance of books. This makes the program easily accessible to all high school girls!

Imagine Your STEM Future has already been piloted with more than 6,000 undeserved teenage girls across the U.S., with positive results. It should be interesting to see how the program does on a larger scale this fall, but it looks like it'll have no trouble continuing to positively affect girls' perspective on STEM.

For more information and to check out statements from GSUSA chief executive officer, Maria Chavez, read the entire PR Newswire report.

Girl Scouts Attend "Cool Science"

U.S. Air Force photo by Julie Imada

Just last week, approximately 50 girls experimented with liquid nitrogen, Alka Seltzer rockets and food chemical mixtures at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado. Supervised by cadets, these girls were ages 5-7 and all belonged to Girls Scout Daisy and Brownie troops. At the Academy's workshop - titled "Cool Science" - the girls were able to see first hand how fun science can be through creative chemistry and physics experiments illustrated by the cadets.  Can I get three cheers for the Air Force Academy?! 

The Girl Scouts spent the day at the Academy working on simple hands-on, educational experiments like how to make ice cream with liquid nitrogen, how a film canister reacts with Alka Seltzer and how many chemistry books a tower constructed of paper and masking tape can support. 

Cadet 4th Class Katherine Case saw the bigger picture when she said, "It's an important event because ti gives an introduction to young girls about the world of science, which is important because there aren't many females in the field."  She added, "when I was younger, I went to something called 'Girls in Engineering and Mathematic Science' that presented workshops on career fields in science and made me fall in love with the field. Now I'm pursuing that love."

These are the type of programs that we need to see more of! Programs that ignite an interest in STEM fields and leave young students with the desire to pursue a career in STEM. While it's important to target girls when they're young so that they don't grow up thinking that STEM fields are for boys, there should still be a push to get boys just as interested and fired up about STEM. 

The Air Force Academy has hosted this workshop every spring and fall for 10 years and hopes it continues to be a hit. Read more about the Nov. 10 workshop.

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