2014 Issue

62 choose STEM careers than men. Not do- ing something about this is equivalent to a farmer sowing seeds and then harvesting only half the fields. Not nurturing girls in STEM is dangerous for our country. By encouraging the message to girls that they are bad at STEM, we’re cutting in half the number of our potential doctors, engineers, and computer scientists. When researching for my book, Save Our Science, I found something that was very surprising: The gender gap is caused by social and environmental attitudes and be- haviors toward girls and women, especially in the classroom. So girls need additional encouragement to bypass the cracks in this STEM pipeline. Think about it. Girls are bombarded daily by the negative messages that they cannot do STEM. The stereotype is pervasive, and these damaging messages bombard girls every day. As much as we want to protect them, our girls are aware of these negative stereotypes beginning in elementary school. But it wasn’t always that way. A hundred years ago, the physical sciences were considered a worthwhile pursuit for girls to undertake. In fact, in the early 1890s, the number of girls taking science was equal to boys, and in some STEM classes, like chemistry and physics, girls were often the majority. But then the number of girls in the sciences took a nosedive. By the middle of the 20th century, the number plunged to 20 percent. Today, we are slowly recovering from this decimation of girls in the sciences. The first step to rebuilding is the knowledge that girls can do science and math just as well as boys. And, that the relationship between girls and STEM has never been a question about their skill but more a reflection of society’s thinking about them. Under-representation is not just a gender issue, but a race issue as well. I recall in my journey being the only person of color in my class, in my major, and, as an adult, in the school of engineering. I can say from experience, that being “the only” causes students in STEM to experience isolation, marginalization, and invisibility. What got me through was a great support system, role models, and mentors. Every student deserves these things. Getting STEM to all who want it can only make the world a better place. This is why we must act. Who knows how many inventions have been lost to society because individuals did not have access to STEM? Emphasize Success Through Failure In STEM, failure is a fact of life. The whole process of discovery is trial-and-error, which is just a fancy way to say ‘fail a lot.’ Failure is not a failure if you learn something. Scientists fail all the time, we just brand it differently. We call it data. We must teach our children to embrace failure. But, some of the ways we teach children instill the opposite. Our focus on testing, leads to a disconnect between what the future needs and how students learn. The innate rigidity of standardized testing teaches skills that are counter to fundamen- tal STEMskills like problemsolving, learning from failure, and developing curiosity. And the way we teach STEM needs changing. While scientists passionately explore, rea- son, discover, synthesize, compare, contrast, and connect the dots, students drudgingly memorize, watch, and passively consume. Students are exercising the wrong muscle. An infusion of STEM taught in compelling ways will give students an opportunity to acquire these active learning skills. In addition to reframing failure, there are STEM topics we need to wholly reframe. Of all STEM topics, math education has the worst reputation. However, if we really think about it, math is the poetry of the universe. The human ear is shaped in golden ratios; leaves are nature’s fractals; and decision- making is game theory. It is time to show that math is beautiful and put the human part back in. This is imperative because math is one of the top three reasons students leave STEM. Let’s not fail our students with boring math. Preparing for the 21st Century Preparing children for the 21st century is like preparing Olympic athletes in an unknown event. What we know for sure is that stu- dents will need skills that include problem solving, critical thinking, communication, flexibility, systems thinking, and self-man- agement. Good STEM teaching includes group and individual investigation, which give all students the opportunity to learn. This will make them more empowered as citizens to make good decisions down the road because they can think for themselves. It is up to us to make STEM fun and engag- ing at every step of the way for every citizen. Doing this is the best legacy we can possibly leave. STEM | continued from page 61 Ainissa G. Ramirez, Ph.D. is a science evangelist who is passionate about getting the general public excited about science. She has co-authored (with Allen St. John) Newton’s Football: The Science Behind America’s Game (Random House); and, authored Save Our Science: How to Inspire a New Generation of Scientists (TED Books). Before taking on the call to improve the public’s under- standing of science, she was an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science at Yale University. Technology Review, the magazine of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), named her as one of the world’s 100 Top Young Innovators for her contributions to transforming technology. She has been profiled in The New York Times, Fortune Magazine, CNN, NPR, ESPN, The Hartford Courant and numerous scientific magazines (Scientific American and Discover Magazine). Dr. Ramirez received her training in materials science and engineering from Brown University (Sc.B.) and Stanford University (Ph.D.). Prior to being on the faculty at Yale, she was a research scientist at Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies, in Murray Hill, New Jersey where she did award-winning research. She has authored more than 50 technical papers, holds six patents, and has presented her work worldwide. She now focuses her energies on making science fun, and gave an impassioned called to action at TED on the importance of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education, which generated widespread enthusiasm. At Yale, she was the director of the award- winning science lecture series for children called Science Saturdays and hosted two popular-science video series called Material Marvels and Science Xplained. To order her book, go to: http://www.ted.com/pages/tedbooks_ library#AinissaRamirez Copyright January 2013 published in the United States by TED Conferences, LLC, New York, NY. Article submitted by Marilyn Marshall, Outreach Chair for the Greater Salt Lake Section of SWE (Society of Women Engineers).