If you were asked to draw a scientist, who would you draw?
LEARN MORE: Recognizing Ms. Frizzle’s Own Magic
For children in the 1960’s and 1970’s, fewer than 1% drew pictures of women. For those asked in studies conducted from 1985 – 2016, this rose to an average of 28%. Yet the youngest kids (ages 5 & 6) drew equal numbers of men and women, with a dramatic gender bias not appearing until after they started school…
“We look at science as something very elite, which only a few people can learn. That’s just not true. You have to start early & give kids a foundation. Kids live up, or down, to expectations” – Mae C. Jamison, engineer, physician, NASA astronaut
LEARN MORE: The Development of Children’s Gender‐Science Stereotypes
LEARN MORE: Portrayals of Male and Female Scientists in Television Programs Popular Among Middle School-Age Children
However, this weekend featured a veritable celebration of women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) – plus ART (STEAM) – at Heritage High School in Vancouver, where close to one thousand 5th through 8th grade girls spent a busy Saturday excited to learn more about becoming scientific researchers, clinicians, technicians and engineers…
LEARN MORE: Women in Science
LEARN MORE: NIH Working Group on Women in Biomedical Careers
LEARN MORE: Women Scientists in America’s History
LEARN MORE: STEAM not STEM: Why scientists need arts training
The 2018 Women in STEM event was organized by nConnect, a nonprofit founded in 2005 by Scott Keeney, the CEO of nLIGHT, a Vancouver-based manufacturer of semiconductor lasers. nConnect offers mentors to encourage and support students taking rigorous STEM courses, and Program Director Laura Randall arranged for this popular and inspiring day…
We were excited to continue field testing our new artist-built Noggin Carrier..!
LEARN MORE: Cartwright Design
And as we comfortably wheeled our brains towards the Home of the Timberwolves, one girl cried out “It’s the brain people! I love these people! They came to my school and I touched a real brain!”
We were mobbed as soon as we arrived!
“I didn’t want to just know names of things. I remember really wanting to know how it all worked.” — Elizabeth Blackburn, winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine
It’s spring break for Portland State University, so today’s volunteers came largely from Washington State, including Ruth Marigomen, the Noggin Resource Council member for the Vancouver campus. She was joined by WSU undergraduates Iris Guttierez, Jeehoon Jung, Anthony Almonte and Eric Polch, along with their own volunteer Noggin mentors from PSU…
(NOTE: WSU administrators continue to suggest that they are directly involved with Noggin, and even post our names as if we worked there – yet they are cutting innovative arts, outreach and instruction in order to maintain excessive compensation for a few (oh, and football). But their terrific students, like many engaged young people, naturally want to do more :))
Studying and learning about brains – not injuring them… 🙂
There were so many great questions! The energy and enthusiasm in this packed, luminous space was palpable, and it was the same day that hundreds of thousands of young people were marching in Washington DC and across the world to eloquently (and successfully) point out the clear, evidence-based link between absent gun laws and horrific, repeated, predictable incidents of gun violence in the United States…
LEARN MORE: Saving lives by regulating guns: Evidence for policy
LEARN MORE: March for Our Lives: Students Protesting Guns Say ‘Enough Is Enough’
LEARN MORE: Gun violence by the numbers
“Dollars and guns are no substitutes for brains and will power” –Dwight D. Eisenhower
We met many young women determined to pursue careers in neuroscience and psychology, both as researchers and clinicians. And students kept recognizing us from our frequent Noggin visits north of the Columbia River in Evergreen and Vancouver public schools!
“I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands. You need to be able to throw something back.” –Maya Angelou
Several girls from iTech Prep, a Vancouver public school on the WSUV campus, excitedly recalled when we’d brought our Art & Brain class participants to talk neurons – and build them out of pipe cleaners!
Innovative STEAM education underway
LEARN MORE: Interneurons @ iTech
LEARN MORE: A receptor return to iTech!
“We ignore public understanding of science at our peril” — Eugenie Clark, “The Shark Lady”
Our inspirational volunteers also ran a series of Noggin workshops, leading middle schoolers through brain cell construction while answering more questions from future female scientists…
MAKE YOUR OWN: STEAM Art Projects
We’re optimistic about a new generation continuing to challenge and overcome the gender bias (and other biases) of some perseverating adults. Many thanks to Laura Randall from nConnect for inviting us to join Women in STEM!
