As time passes by, girls lose their interest in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).
A research finding by Dr. Shalini Kesar in collaboration with Microsoft shows that in middle school, 31 percent of girls believe that jobs requiring coding and programming are “not for them.” In high school, that percentage jumps up to 40. By the time they’re in college, 58 percent of girls count themselves out of these jobs. Another research shows that female STEM professors not only provide positive role models for women, but they also help to reduce the implicit stereotype that science is masculine.
By having at least these two researches in mind, we can simply arrive at the conclusion that we need more female role models in STEM. So, what can we do about it?
An amazing thing happened yesterday. Ad Council partnered with General Electric, Google, IBM, Microsoft and Verizon to start a new campaign, She Can STEM. The partnership not only consists of these big tech companies, but also non-profit organizations like Black Girls Code, Girls Who Code and Society of Women Engineers. With this campaign, it is aimed to give visibility to women who are dominating the STEM world to encourage more girls to pursue careers in STEM fields.
By the beginning of this week, they started to feature ads from several social media platforms, let’s have a look at a few of them.
#SheCanSTEM: Bonnie Ross 🎮
Here you see Bonnie Ross, the head of Halo Game Studio at Microsoft. She says that when she was young she knew nothing about coding. She encourages the girls by highlighting the fact that they can learn about coding, and have the power to change the world. You can find the full video below.
#SheCanSTEM: Tiera Fletcher 🚀
Here is another female role model! She is Tiera Fletcher, a Structural Analysis Engineer at Boeing. She designs and builds parts of the rockets. The full video of her is below. Isn’t she encouraging?
#SheCanSTEM: Lucianne Walkowicz 🌌
Have you ever look up the sky, and wondered whether there is life out there? 💫
Here is Lucianne Walkowicz, an Astronomer at the Adler Planetarium. Lucianne tells that when she was a young girl, she was fascinated by the stars. Now she searches for life in the universe, and inspires others to also be scientists just like her.
You can’t be what you can’t see. This is the purpose of this post and this campaign. To have more female role models and to help build the future with the girls along with the boys.
She can STEM.
So can you.
Let’s build the future together!
To find out more videos like these, you can look at the YouTube channel named She Can STEM here. Also, you can have a look at the website of the campaign from here.
-Coding Woman
References:
Girls Learning STEM and Computer Science | Microsoft. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/digital-skills/girls-stem-cs
She Can STEM. So Can You. | Empowering Girls in STEM. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://shecanstem.com/
Young, D. M., Rudman, L. A., Buettner, H. M., & Mclean, M. C. (2013). The Influence of Female Role Models on Women’s Implicit Science Cognitions. Psychology of Women Quarterly,37(3), 283-292. doi:10.1177/0361684313482109
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