Opening Opportunities for Girls in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM)
AAUW NGCP LIAISONS
AAUW members across the country are acting as liaisons for the National Girls Collaborative Project. These liaisons help the people involved in the NGCP to make connections — to one another, to resources on gender equity in STEM, and to AAUW.
California Marie Wolbach
Great Lakes Region Geraldine Oberman (IA, IL, IN, MI, MN, MO, OH, WI)
Middle Atlantic Region Elizabeth Vandenburg (DC, DE, MD, VA) Dot McLane (CT, PA, NY, NJ)
New England Region Kimberly Edgar (MA, NH, RI, VT) Anja Whittington (ME)
South Atlantic Region Jennifer McDaniel (FL, GA, PR) Susan Metz (NC)
Southeast Central Region Ellen Nolan (KY)
Southwest Central Region Kristian Trampus (TX)
Diversity Outreach Liaison Letha Granberry
For contact information for any of the above Liaisons, please contact Connect2AAUW at connect@aauw.org or 1-800-326-2289.
State Spotlight
Check out AAUW California's Tech Trek Science Camp for Girls!
Branch Spotlight
Want to talk with girls about STEM fields?Techbridge,a program for girls originally funded in part by a grant from the AAUW Oakland-Piedmont California branch has developed a guide to help role models, corporations, and educators plan effective classroom visits and field trips.
Produced by the Center for Women and Information Technology, "You can be Anything," uses the power of media to give young women a positive impression of career opportunities in fields where technology plays a major role.
Related Research Reports
Educating the Engineer of 2020 recommends how to enrich and broaden engineering education so graduates are better prepared to work in a global economy.
Beyond Bias and Barriersexplains that eliminating gender bias in academia requires immediate reform, including action by universities, professional societies, foundations, and the government.
Changing the Conversationprovides actionable strategies and market-tested messages for presenting a richer, more positive image of engineering.
There are many projects devoted to increasing the number of girls interested in STEM across the country, but, often, individuals working on one girl-serving STEM project are unaware of similar projects nearby. A large part of the NGCP is the creation of a Program Directory of these girl-serving projects and others interested in increasing gender equity in STEM. The Program Directory allows organizations and individuals to network, share resources, and collaborate on STEM-related projects for girls.
There are currently 14 regional collaboratives across the U.S. based on the NGCP model. Through these local collaboratives, NGCP makes $1000 mini-grants available to partnerships of 2 or more programs to support a joint project. The NGCP also provides research-based promising practices in informal learning and evaluation and assessment to the participating programs to help further advance the work of these girl-serving projects.
The National Girls Collaborative Project is supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation, Research on Gender in Science and Engineering Award HRD-0631766.
Want to evaluate how well your STEM program is working? Assessing Women and Men in Engineering, a project of the Society of Women Engineers, and a partner in the NGCP, offers exportable assessment instruments, literature resources and capacity building tools for women in engineering and similar programs including surveys, data collection templates, capacity building tools and national benchmarking.
Improve your branch STEM program! Register online then go to "Pre-College Recruiting Surveys" to download free surveys for girls (and boys) participating in your branch programs. Resources include pre-program surveys, surveys to give to participants immediately after the program, and surveys to send out further down the road.
AAUW Research on Girls in STEM
Under the Microscope: A Decade of Gender Equity Projects in the Sciences examines more than 400 gender equity projects aimed at increasing the participation of girls and women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The report reveals trends in the development and support of these projects during the last decade and offers recommendations for strengthening the advancement of gender equity in the sciences.
As violent video games and dull programming classes turn off more and more girls to the computer culture, schools need to change the way information technology is used, applied, and taught in the classroom, according to the AAUW Educational Foundation report, Tech-Savvy: Educating Girls in the New Computer Age. Free copies of this report and a video are available. A companion guide, Tech Check, helps schools assess the technology opportunities they offer female students.