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Spring News from CalGirlS |
Welcome New Champions Board Members
We are thrilled by the addition of three new Champions Board members. Paloma Garcia Lopez is a social entrepreneur working to implement solutions to address large social change. She serves on the board for the Community Science Workshop and served as the executive director for the Maker Initiative. Christopher Roe leads the California STEM Learning Network (CSLNet) as its president and CEO of a non-profit working to catalyze innovations in STEM through strategic partnerships and collaborations with regional, state, and national partners. Tara Chklovski is the CEO and founder of Iridescent based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She continues to lead and create pioneering programs in STEM for girls including Technovation, a global technology entrepreneurship program for young women ages 10 to 23. Champions board members help the CalGirlS network to disseminate project information and goals, and to inform the Leadership Team of strategic connections, linkages, and opportunities for the project.
Collaboration Conference Date Set!
In other news, hold the date Friday, December 12th, 2014 for the Collaboration Conference to be held in Berkeley at the Clark Kerr Conference Facility. Leadership Team members Fatima Alleyne and Monika Mayer are co-chairing. More details to follow.
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Shout out for NorCal Girl Scouts Event - "When I grow up..." |
Girls Scouts of Northern California are presenting "When I Grow Up...", a STEM career exploration takingplace Saturday, November 15th, 2014 at the NASA AMES Research Center. This is event is for all ages K12. Adults can also attend! There will be hands-on activities led by professional women representing the 21st century workforce and deepen your interests and achieve your goals. There will be special workshops for girls in 6-12th grade too. If you are a female STEM professional and would like to share your stories about the challenges and share how you have overcome them, run a booth, or host activity, please email Jennifer
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Girls' Surfboard Design and Build Workshop
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Diana Valdez, 11 year-old engineer-in-training, is using the pull saw to cut out the surfboard she's building with her Surfboard Design and Build group at the Watsonville Environmental Science Workshop (WESW), one of five California sites in the Community Science Workshop Network. Seven girls aged 9 to 15 years old get picked up each week from the apartments they live in at a former migrant labor camp nestled in the strawberry fields outside of town. Every Wednesday they design, shape, and glass in surfboards at the Science Workshop on Second Street in downtown Watsonville. The group will work together to make one surfboard for each participating girl to keep, using blanks and tools donated by the Wahine Project in Monterey. The program was dreamed up by WESW science educators as a way to encourage girls to get into long-term, tool-intensive projects at the workshop, and also to introduce the girls to the ocean in a meaningful and engaging way. The program leads girls to take charge at every stage of the process of building a surfboard: from designing the shaping stand, to building their own tools out of old sander belts, to making fine adjustments to the profile of the board that affect the way it slides through the water. Throughout the project, they'll work together in a group, helping each other to learn new skills and collaborating on each other's projects. At the end of the summer, they'll go on surfing field trips with their new surfboards at local beaches. Many of the participating girls rarely get to visit the ocean, although they live scarcely two miles from the coast, and this program will be a chance for them to experience the riches of the kelp forests, wild animals, and the rocky geographic features that distinguish the Monterey Bay Marine Sanctuary. Thanks Emilyn for sharing your story with us!
--- Emilyn Green is the Executive Director of the CSW Network, a California non-profit whose mission is to be a powerful advocate and resource for Community Science Workshops (CSWs), providing opportunities for youth to tinker, make and explore their world through science in under-served communities across the state. |
Role Models Matter Toolkit now available!
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Check out the newly released free, online Role Models Matter Toolkit created by Techbridge. This interactive toolkit will help you develop skills to engage girls and underrepresented youth in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math). If you want to be a STEM role model or you are looking to engage STEM role models to work with your youth, this toolkit is for you.
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Iridescent creates pathway for girls participation in White House Science Fair
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Tara Chlovski, founder of Iridescent, shared some excited news with us. Two girls from the Irridescent Science Studio in the Bronx Hunts Point participated in the White House Science Fair. Iridescent is science education non-profit in San Francisco that inspires and equips underserved children to imagine, invent, and engineer! Read more about the girls in STEM here:
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News from the State of California |
Counting down the months already! The California STEM Symposium hosted by State Superintendent Tom Torlakson, the Californians Dedicated to Education Foundation, and the the Commission on the Status of Women and Girls will be held in September 22-23 at the San Diego Convention Center.
The Symposium is bringing together 3000 teachers, administrators, students, higher education representatives, program providers, philanthropic representatives and industry representatives to engage them in STEM education by providing strategies and resources for program implementation. The Symposium will have a special focus on increasing and supporting the participation of women and girls-as well as other underrepresented groups-in STEM fields. It will also highlight leaders in classroom innovation from across the state and attract student teams to showcase critical thinking, problem solving, and teamwork.
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This is a good way educators, parents, afterschool providers, mentors, teachers, collaborators, and funders learn about STEM programs that include and serve girls. CalGirlS will also be using this directory to communicate program information and promote collaboration between programs.
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The goals of the National Girls Collaborative Project are to:
- Strengthen the capacity of girl-serving STEM programs to effectively reach and serve underrepresented girls in STEM by sharing promising practice research and program models, outcomes and products.
- Increase the effectiveness of Collaboratives by providing professional development focused on sustainability, organizational effectiveness and shared leadership to more effectively deliver services to girl-serving STEM organizations.
- Maximize K-12 school counselors' access to and use of relevant, high-quality resources that increase awareness of barriers to girls' interest and engagement in STEM.
The Lawrence Hall of Science at the University of California, Berkeley is proud to be the collaborative lead with the National Girls Collaborative Project as its California affiliate - California Girls in STEM (CalGirlS).
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Thanks to Our Partners and Supporters
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