Hey All!
I recently had the fantastic opportunity to share and learn more about STEM, from a twitter discussion I recently participated in thanks to the kind folks at @GreenWorks and @AAUW. Having a boy in the house, I haven’t been extremely familiar with STEM. I’ve know of it and it’s importance to young girls & women, but I didn’t know specifics of the initiative. In case you didn’t know, STEM stands for: Science, Technology, Engineering, Math. The program is really an amazing campaign to get girls interested and loving these subjects. The AAUW aka The American Association of University Women, supports promoting and strengthening science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education, especially for girls and other underrepresented populations. This fabulous organization works to break down the barriers that deter women from pursuing academic and career goals in these fields. As a women who’s always known the importance of education and who graduated college (as you can see above), I’m always interested to hear about new initiatives that will help the women of tomorrow.
During the Twitter chat, I learned a few great pieces of information that I’d like to share with you today:
1. Women get paid unequally to men who are doing the same jobs! For example, women in engineering are paid 82% of what their male counterparts are paid. Women in computing are paid only 87% of what their male counterparts are paid.
In this day in age, that’s pretty startling to discover. It should be equal pay for the same work in my opinion.
2. Only 10% of High School girls show interest in STEM! That’s really sad to hear as science was my favorite subject in High School. We really need to focus girls away from the emoji’s, cell phones, and the superficial to interests that are more beneficial and important to their lives.
3. 80% of the future jobs will require a STEM education. That means if the majority of young girls today and in the future are not interested in learning in one of the STEM subjects, they will have a harder time finding work in the future.
4. It is important for the women scientists of today to succeed. Their success inspires many other and thus will inspire young women to become scientists in the future.
5. There are so many amazing women scientists! I asked if the female scientists participating in the Twitter Discussion could share with me some famous female scientists and the response I got was amazing. I learned about Jane Goodall, Annie Jump Cannon who created the modern Harvard classification system for stars (while overcoming a hearing disability), Melba Roy Mouton of NASA, and Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin (she discovered the Sun was mostly made of hydrogen).
6. Workforce projections for 2018 show that nine of the 10 fastest-growing occupations that require at least a bachelorās degree will require significant scientific or mathematical training. STEM jobs are expected to grow by 17 percent from 2008 to 2018, while non-STEM jobs are expected to grow by 9.8%. The supply of new workers in these fields is struggling to keep up with demand, and women remain severely underrepresented.
Being a woman, it was such an informative chat about the importance of STEM. I truly believe we should be getting our girls more involved and interested in these subjects. Women can make huge contributions to the progression of Science and Technology. We just have to have the tools to learn from and the interest to do so. Let’s show our girl power force and encourage the women of tomorrow that it’s OK to love and learn these subjects!
Thanks so much to Green Works for hosting this amazing chat. I love when a brand that I love also supports an initiative that will help so many!
Check out this inspiring video below showcasing Green Works Nurturing of the #NaturalPotential of girls.
For more info on Green Works and this program visit the Green Works Website.
This post was created in partnership with Green Works.
Thanks for supporting the brands that make this site possible.
Welcome!
Comments