“Why are you all here?,” Crocker asked the participants. In the future, however, it is predicted that 80 percent of new jobs will require a STEM degree. In the opening session, Crocker told the girls and their families that 20 percent of jobs today require a degree in one of the sciences, technology, engineering or math fields. Events like these, where girls can come together and look at other women in fields of science and think, ‘I can do this too,’ are very important.” For us, it wasn’t really pushed as strongly. I never really saw a lot of black females in my science classes. I definitely think a workshop like this is going to help that issue. “What we don’t have a lot of, though, are minority females. “We do have quite a few females in our department, and it’s actually an inspiring work environment,” Denning said. She was excited to participate in the workshop to share her experience and enthusiasm for her chosen field. In 2011, only six percent of STEM workers were black and seven percent were Hispanic.Ĭatherine Denning is pursuing her doctoral degree in chemistry at UK. Census Bureau publication states that African Americans and Hispanics have been consistently underrepresented in STEM employment. Women continue to be underrepresented in STEM fields, making up only 24 percent of the workforce according to a study from the U.S. About 20 organizations from campus and the Lexington community were represented. Christy Payne, an Associate Professor in Chemical Engineering, organized an Opportunities Fair, which took place over lunch. Susan Odom, an Associate Professor in Chemistry in the UK College of Arts and Sciences, and Bradford Condon, postdoctoral scholar with University of Tennessee’s Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology and UK Department of Plant Pathology, also served as coordinators of the conference. “To open their eyes to some of the possibilities and introduce them to role models, young women who are just a little older than they are, to show them that those pathways are possible.” “Our goal is to give them a tiny taste of the great opportunities in science, technology, engineering and mathematics,” said Ellen Crocker, a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Forestry in the UK College of Agriculture, Food and Environment, who was one of the event coordinators. It was funded by a grant through the Kentucky National Science Foundation EPSCoR (Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research) Program through an Education, Outreach, and Community Award. During the workshop, the young students met many female undergraduate and graduate students studying STEM disciplines at UK who introduced them to a large variety of topics, such as the ecological impact of trees, water treatment and purification, neuroscience, chemistry, electrical engineering and molecular gastronomy, just to name a few sessions that day. A recent daylong workshop at the University of Kentucky sought to stem that tide by introducing 120 Kentucky middle school girls to a challenging STEM career.Ī multidisciplinary project, Expanding Your Horizons, focused on countermanding some of the possible reasons that girls’ interest in the sciences flag at a certain age, such as peer pressure or a lack of female role models. Sometime during the transition from middle school to high school, girls often find their early interest in science and math steered in other directions, often toward careers that fit comfortably into a box of more “traditional” women’s roles. Middle school students are awed when they get the chance to turn a banana into a percussion instrument at the 2017 Expanding Your Horizons STEM workshop for girls.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |