As I continue to research my topic of how to inspire students to consider careers in science and technology, I'm finding some great material parents, teachers, and future teacher can use for motivating and inspiring young adults. This weeks post focuses on a fantastic program that connects middle school girls with a program called GEMS - Girls, Engineering, Math, and Science. As a parent of two daughters, ages 13 and 8, I want them to understand the value of a strong science curriculum, and know that all jobs of the future will require a basic understanding of math and science. Consider the following:
The most recent ten year employment projections by the U.S. Labor Department show that of the 20 fastest growing occupations projected for 2014, 15 of them require significant mathematics or science preparation to successfully compete for a job.
Bureau of Labor and Statistics, Fastest growing occupations, 2004-14, http://www.bls.gov/emp/emptab21.htm
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, about one-third of the fourth-graders and one-fifth of eighth-graders cannot perform basic mathematical computations, and U.S. high school seniors recently tested below the international average for 21 countries in mathematics and science.
National Center for Education Statistics
American students’ disinterest in math and science continues at the graduate-level, too, where less than 10 percent of degrees are conferred in engineering, mathematics and computer science. This places our country 20th internationally in terms of the share of graduate degrees in these critical areas.
U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Higher Education
Wisconsin GEMS is a collaborative effort supported by UW-Extension, UW-Colleges, and numerous other community partners to support math and science exploration for middle school girls. They offer day long programs that include hands-on workshops, presentations, speakers, and all kinds of fun activities. In addition to GEMS conferences these campuses offer numerous other opportunities for hands-on math and science activities including College for Kids, Science Academies, math tutoring, Super Saturdays, and tours and field trips. The programs also address some social aspects relating to middle school girls, but their mission is "to support math and science exploration for middle school girls".
CHECK THIS OUT...especially if you have young daughters!!!!
Under the Feed Your Brain tab on their website they have the following links:
Careers---so what are ya going to be?
Engineer Girl (hint: check out the essay contest!)
Maybe a career in health care?
Hey, use this to get organized!
The 4 steps to College...
Engineer Your Life (neat videos)
Become a physiologist (hugh?)
Become a biomedical researcher
Dream big and find the path to making your career and your life whatever you want it to be!
Have a HOT time in Oshkosh this summer!
Programs and Camps
I've spent lots of time exploring this website. I highly recommend it to everyone. Let me know what you think.
Wow, Brad! I admit, I love the topic of this post and I would have enjoyed what you had to say no matter what you wrote... but I really enjoy the last links you gave us. In fact, I am going to forward some of these sites to my cooperating teacher because there's an 8 year old girl in my clinical placement that would be empowered by some of those websites.
ReplyDeleteI am a science minor (and would have double minored in science and math if it wouldn't mean graduating in 2014) and I'm also a girl. I would have loved to have these resources available to me when I was looking around to find out what I wanted to do with my life :) Thank you for compiling that list!
Really awesome finds, especially since everyone knows that at certain ages you lose some students in the some subject areas and as you progress in grade levels you lose girls in others.
ReplyDeleteYou have found a great deal of articles/sites that are very useful for all teachers and teachers to be that can be adapted to help students that struggle/dislike some content areas in certain grade levels.This is looking really positive and hopeful for the science and math content areas.
I loved your topic. The resources and links you find are very helpful. If you can inspire student to love what they learn by connect the content to their future life, you've succeed a big part of teaching. One big challenge in teaching science is student feel it's boring, and questioning why should they learn it...they tend to lose interest. This is a good tool to help them keep interest in learning and sees the future. I can even use the link for my kids....
ReplyDeleteBrad,
ReplyDeleteHere is an interesting report on women in science and engineering:
http://www.aauw.org/learn/research/whysofew.cfm
Many of the topics in the report hold true for all kids in science!