The Next Ada Lovelace: girls & STEAM at Maker Faire
As a company creating products in the kids’ media space, it’s always been important for us to engage all kids, both male, female, and in between. When it comes to STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math), it’s especially important that we provide equal and diverse opportunities for all kids. This seems like a straightforward idea. But women still remain underrepresented in the sciences. While kids participate in STEAM activities more equally in the their early years of schooling, girls’ participation slowly decreases over time.
Recalling our past experiences at Maker Faire—seeing kids of all genders excitedly immersed in learning (and so many cool things!)—we thought it was the perfect place to engage in a conversation about encouraging and supporting girls to stay with STEAM. And so, on Saturday, September 26th, at World Maker Faire, we sat down with Jens Peter de Pedro, Creative Lead at Toca Boca, Jocelyn Leavitt, CEO of Hopscotch, Pat Daly, Executive Director of NYC FIRST, Azi Jamalian, Cofounder and Chief Learning Officer of Tiggly, and Michael Rothman, CEO of Fatherly to discuss the importance of girls in STEAM.
We recapped our conversation with tweets over on Storify. Please continue with us over there!
