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Effectively Engaging Girls and other Underserved Communities in STEM

Karen Peterson, National Girls Collaborative Moderator: Anita Sohus

February 17, 2016 3:00 pm CT

Coordinator: This is the Operator. I would like to remind all parties that call is now being

recorded. If you have any objections, please disconnect at this time. And

thank you, you may begin.

Amelia Chapman: Hi. Welcome everybody. Thank you for joining us today. This is Amelia

Chapman, and welcome to a Museum Alliance Professional Development

Conversation, Effectively Engaging Girls and Other Underserved

Communities in STEM.

First, a few reminders -- please take a minute to make sure your phone is on

mute, not just on hold. I know we had some people as you were calling in that

were on other calls, so please do make sure you are muted.

The slides for today’s presentation can be found on the Museum Alliance and

Solar Ambassador System site. If you have any problems, please contact me at

[email protected].

If you’re not a member of either site, the presentation slides are also available

at the following Web site, http://informal.jpl.nasa.gov/museum/guest. User

name is informal and password is lifelong.

Our speaker today, Karen Peterson, is Chief Executive Officer for the

National Girls Collaborative. She has over 25 years of experience in education

as a classroom teacher, university instructor, teacher educator, program

administrator, and researcher. Currently, she is the Principal Investigator for

the National Girls Collaborative Project, which seeks to maximize access to

shared resources for public and private sector organizations interested in

expanding girls’ participation in science, technology, engineering, and math,

or STEM.

The overarching goal of the NGCP is to use the leverage of a network of

individual girl-serving STEM programs to create the tipping point for gender

equity in STEM.

Karen has indicated that she’s happy to take questions as we go along. So

without further ado, I’m going to turn it over to Karen.

Karen Peterson: Hi. Just doing a little sound check to make sure everybody can hear me all

right.

Amelia Chapman: Yes, I can hear you.

Karen Peterson: Slide 1: Great. Thank you so much for that introduction. I’m very excited to

be speaking with all of you today. And I have a sense that I may know some

of you, or some of you may be involved in our local collaboratives across the

United States.

And I’m speaking about one of my most favorite topics, and that is about how

to engage girls and other underserved communities in STEM. So as you heard,

along the way feel free to ask questions. I’m going to sort of work my way

through these slides and I’m happy to provide additional resources.

One of the great things about this topic is that there are many, many resources

available. And so it’s not really a matter of figuring out what to do, but

utilizing the resources and the research that we have available to us.

Slide 2: So I’m going to jump right into talking about why do we focus on

girls? Why is it that we’re focused on engaging more girls in STEM? Because

we know that girls and boys do not display a significant difference in their

abilities in math and science. But what they do display a difference in is

confidence and interest. And we see this also with underrepresented groups --

especially among Native American groups.

We also know that women and other underserved groups are underrepresented

in STEM at the college and workforce level -- especially in engineering,

computer science, and physical science.

And so we know that really STEM is an equity issue in terms of everyone

having the opportunities to pursue career paths that they want to, and having

the information they need to do so.

STEM is also a pay equity issue. Women in STEM professions make less than

their male STEM counterparts, just like in non-STEM fields. But, women in

STEM do make more on average than women in other occupations.

Slide 3: But now, I’m going to try to do sort of an exercise that I do when I

present in person, asking you to think about our gendered world and how we

communicate gender and role expectations. And I’ll tell you, when I do this in

person I have stacks of birthday cards that I have purchased at a local -- and I

always do this like right around where I’m doing my presentation -- a local

Walgreens or CVS or Rite Aid or Target -- I go in and I purchase birthday

cards.

And so if you think about that activity, going in to purchase a birthday card

and what you see on the racks, it’s a great example of really how we do

communicate gender and role expectations. And I don’t know if we have any

brave souls out there who are interested in sort of contributing what they see

when they look at birthday cards, but I would love to hear from somebody

about, when you just go to pick out say a birthday card for a girl, what you’re

presented with in a store.

Woman: Hi. Usually I’m presented with lots of pinks and Disney princesses.

Karen Peterson: Exactly. And what about for boys? What do we see for boys?

Amelia Chapman: I’d say a lot of dinosaurs, transportation, trucks, and trains.

Woman: And superheroes, too.

Karen Peterson: Exactly. Yes, superheroes, right. We also see boys in roles as fire fighters or

heroes, right? Action heroes. And so if you think about what kind of messages

those cards give to young children, that as a girl you’re dressed up like a fairy

princess and you might actually be portrayed as somebody fairly passive --

wishing and hoping.

And as a boy, you’re very active and you’re putting out fires and you’re

solving problems and you’re Superman. And so, just thinking about what

those messages send, it can be very difficult for boys and girls to learn about

alternative roles or keep their minds open to all kinds of different future

careers.

So, my next slide actually just has some photos that I put up that I

found on the internet that shows some of these gendered configurations that

we see. I think maybe if I searched today, I might be able to find a picture of a

girl in an astronaut suit. Certainly this year, we have I think half of the class of

astronauts were women, and so it’ll be great to have them as role models.

Slide 5: And then I have a few slides from our friends in Sweden, who

actually took a toy catalog -- I think this happened in 2014 -- and reversed all

the roles. And I want to say, I don’t think it was IKEA. It might have been

their version of Target. And I got some really great photos of boys feeding

dolls (Slide 5), or that one photo I like where there’s a girl using a nerf gun

(Slide 6). And they very methodically went through and flipped the models

that they were using in those photos so that there would be more choices for

boys and girls. And I just thought that was fun photos to look at.

Slide 7: So now, let’s talk a little bit more now about the research on girls and

STEM, and why those negative stereotypes about girls and women in STEM

persist. And this slide that I’m looking at has these drawings of scientists. And

this has been a long time sort of experiment that many educators use. I know

that I use it often when I work with educators and young people, where you

basically ask someone to just draw a scientist.

And usually what you get is somebody in a white lab coat, usually a man, with

crazy hair and glasses. And so here are some photos from drawings that we

had from young girls. And I think we see that these are stereotypes, right?

That girls are not as good as boys in math, that scientific work is better suited

to boys and men.

And this is actually something that we call stereotype threat, where it’s a

threat of being viewed through the lens of a negative stereotype, and so that

creates a fear of doing something that would confirm the stereotype. So

there’s a large body of research that found that negative stereotypes affect

girls and women’s performance and aspirations in math and science through

stereotype threat.

So, one strategy to combat stereotype threat is to teach students and educators

that it exists. And by doing this sort of draw a scientist and then talking about

it with students and with adults can point out wow, why is it that 20 of the 25

people in this room drew a picture of a man with crazy hair and glasses. And

talking about the different sorts of examples of role models that we have of

women who are scientists. I’m going to return to this idea a little bit later on in

the presentation.

Slide 8: So, now I want to talk about beliefs about intelligence. Carol Dweck

has actually -- and now there are a number of other researchers that are

working on this topic -- but she was the first one to do some writing around

the growth versus fixed mindset. But in the growth mindset, we believe that

intelligence is flexible, and it’s developed through effort.

In a fixed mindset, we feel that intelligence is inborn and it’s uncontrollable.

So for example, girls are bad at math, right? Or boys are bad at sewing, or

those sorts of things, instead of thinking that anybody could learn to become

proficient in math or anyone can learn to sew.

And I’ve got a quote on there, on that slide from a kindergarten teacher that is

actually a colleague of mine, was very excited to come home from open

house, and she gave me this quote. This kindergarten teacher said, “I share

with your children my belief that trying things and making mistakes are the

necessary ways that we all learn and grow.” And so this is a great example of

a teacher using that idea of growth mindset to help the boys and girls think

about how we can become better and learn different things. It’s not something

that we’re just born with.

But I will say that in the research that has been developed, and of course, we

have to be careful when we talk about this because it’s not all boys and all

girls, but that girls tend to feel that they come from a fixed mindset point of

view, they tend to. And boys tend to have a growth mindset. Again, not all

boys and not all girls.

And so, we can really encourage a growth mindset in students. We can praise

for effort. Avoid the suggestion that someone is smart at a particular subject.

And really highlight that taking on challenges that help us with learning and

growth, that’s the way that we can take on new content. And anyone can learn

how to do certain topics and certain things.

Slide 9: So now, I’m going to talk about this slide that talks about the SciGirls

Seven. I’m a Co-PI on SciGirls, which is a PBS television series. I hope that

many of you have heard about it. It’s produced by Twin Cities Public

Television. Right now, we’re on season four, which is focused on Citizen

Science. If you aren’t aware of the SciGirls television series, you can just

Google it or search for it and you’ll get all kinds of great resources. We have

educator guides, we have activities.

But one of the best resources that we developed as part of the SciGirls

television series is SciGirls Seven. And these are strategies for engaging girls

in STEM. And I’ve just put them all on this one slide, but one of things I

realize I could provide is sort of a resource document, and there’s research

behind every single one of these strategies.

In the interest of time, I’m just going to quickly go through them. But we have

all kinds of hands on activities, as I said, research, reading, and links back to

our episodes that illustrate why these strategies are so powerful. We won an

Emmy in 2014, so we’re very excited about getting that recognition.

But these seven strategies are really key in encouraging girls and

underrepresented groups to engage in STEM.

So the first one is embrace collaboration. The second one is find something

that’s personally relevant. And we do know from research that young people -

- and especially girls -- are much more interested in something that’s relevant

to them. And so, one of the activities that we have connected to this strategy is

really to encourage girls to come up with a topic or content that is something

they care about -- maybe their neighborhood, maybe something connected to

their family or their school -- and by using that strategy, you can increase their

interest in science and math. Also, hands on, open ended participation.

The fourth one is to accommodate preferred learning styles. The fifth one is

providing specific, positive feedback. And again, that connects back to fixed

and growth mindset that I mentioned earlier.

Six, allow for critical thinking. And seven -- and I’m going to talk a little bit

more as we go through about this -- but really involving role models and

mentors. It is difficult to see yourself in a specific career or doing something if

you don’t see someone who looks like you doing that. And so we found that

role models and mentors are very important in encouraging girls and folks

from other underrepresented groups to consider STEM as a career.

I’m going to pause for a minute and see if there are any questions about the

SciGirls Seven. I went through that very quickly. I realize that.

Amelia Chapman: This is Amelia. I was just going to say the Museum Alliance page, we have a

resource, Engaging Girls in STEM, and we like the SciGirls Seven and have a

link.

Karen Peterson: Yay, wonderful. It’s right there. It’s a great resource.

Woman: Can you repeat the log-on information?

Amelia Chapman: Sure. Yes. It’s just informal, I-N-F-O-R-M-A-L .jpl.nasa.gov/museum/guest

and then you log in with the user name: informal and the password: lifelong.

You can also email me at [email protected].

Woman: I had a quick question for Karen. On number four, where you say

accommodate preferred learning styles, could you expand a little bit on that?

Are there specific learning styles that you say are preferred? Or are we

supposed to determine what the girl’s preferred learning style is and obviously

use that?

Karen Peterson: Yes, so it is to be more inclusive and open to identifying what the preferred

learning styles are. Because if you think about adult learning, that some of us

want to listen to things. Some of us need to touch something to figure it out.

Some of us take notes. And so it’s really, when you’re working with a group

of young people to identify what might be the preferred learning style.

Another way to approach that is if you’re doing some kind of group activity,

make sure that you rotate the roles, so say that you have for maybe four young

people in a group and you have somebody who’s the recorder and somebody

who has another role. There are a number of really great activities where you

put young people in teams. Make sure that you either allow people to choose

their role so that they can choose which one works best for them. So often

girls end up being the scribe, so it’s important to be aware of that.

Or, have everybody try every role, which can also be really valuable. Because

they might be a little uncomfortable at doing the role, but if everybody tries

something that expands sort of their thinking around what they can do.

Woman: Ok, thank you.

Karen Peterson: Sure. Other questions?

Man: I couldn’t see a slide show and now I see a PDF there. But the PDF, some of

the text is gibberish.

Karen Peterson: Dear.

Man: Is there another resource you can lead me to?

Karen Peterson: Andrea was it - did my PDF not...

Amelia Chapman: When I put the PDF on our site, it looks fine. I’m out of the office now. I can

repost it later. Did you get to it through the Museum Alliance or through the

Solar System Ambassador?

Man: I’m on the Museum Alliance site. And the only resource that showed up when

I logged in about a half hour ago were two Web site links. And now when I

go, there’s a PDF there. And when I open the PDF, the pictures show up all

right but the text is gibberish.

Woman: I actually -- if I can help out -- if you download that PDF, it’ll fix that

problem. I had that exact same problem, but when I downloaded it, it was fine.

Man: Ok, thank you.

Woman: Yes.

Amelia Chapman: Thank you.

Karen Peterson: Wow that’s a good tip. Yes, go for it.

Woman: I also have a question about providing specific and positive feedback. I’ve

been doing some work with really young children, and we found some

evidence that doing the positive feedback like good job actually inhibits their

exploration. So could you talk a little bit more about what you mean by

positive feedback?

Karen Peterson: Right. So I think it’s true that saying good job is actually not as specific. So

I’m talking about being very specific about I like the way you did that very

specific thing. Good job is much too general. And they don’t necessarily know

what that means. So, being very specific about the task or whatever it is that

you’re complimenting them on, or even I like the way you shared such and

such with so-and-so.Be as specific as possible. And I have to tell you that

when you first start doing that, it feels a little awkward. It feels awkward to

pick out this one specific thing. But actually, you will see how well children

respond to that.

And it feels a little counterintuitive. Saying...

Woman: You would think encouraging someone is a good thing. But if it’s generic, I

see what you mean. If it’s not specific enough, then it’s…they don’t know

what you’re talking about.

Karen Peterson: Well exactly. And I think the other thing to think about is that you have a

much bigger challenge for girls and other underrepresented groups. So,

they’re not necessarily going to believe you. You can say, “Great. Job. You

were amazing at that.” And inside, they’re like yes, sure. So it’s actually hard.

And maybe picking out very specific things that they can really, “Oh, right,

yes I was good at that”, I will use a very simple example that like putting

these three Legos together. I was good at that.

Then they believe it and you start building their confidence that way because

they, I mean, you could say it was a good job and they might think well no, I

wasn’t really doing that great. You’re not going to build their confidence that

way. So it is really finding something super specific. And I’ll tell you that

often what I do is I sort of go backwards in time, like I think about the activity

and think about what things I can provide compliments about, positive

feedback, and design activities that allow me to be able to provide that

feedback. Does that make sense? You’re designing the activity so that there

are some key success points that then you can point out. Makes it a little

easier.

These are great questions. All right, so I will move on. But we can always

return to these slides or questions as we go along.

Slide 10: What I wanted to do now was to give everybody sort of an overview

to the National Girls Collaborative Project (NGCP). We have many resources

on our Web site and through our various collaboratives and the presentations

and workshops that we do. We have many more resources than I can talk

about in this time period. So giving you sort of a sense of what the National

Girls Collaborative Project does provides you with some resources that you

can draw upon whenever you need them.

So, I have a slide that talks about really our vision, which is to bring together

organizations that are committed to informing and encouraging girls to pursue

careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. And I like to

talk a little bit about, sort of give you a very brief insight into our origination

story because it speaks to why and how we’re doing the work that we’re

doing.

We started about 12 years ago, and there were four of us -- two in Oregon

state and two in Washington state -- and we actually wanted to design a

program for girls. And our goal was to design a program and to write a grant

for the National Science Foundation. We had a program officer there that was

open to accepting a proposal from us as an open solicitation.

And so we decided that we would go off and talk to different programs that

were serving girls and see if we could identify sort of the needs and the gap

and find out what was needed.

Over the course of about six weeks, we talked to lots of different people that

were serving girls in STEM. And when we were talking with them, we heard

some similar things. We heard them telling us that they were really busy.

They referred us to lots of other people that were doing this work, but they

said, I never get a chance to talk to this person, this other program educator

because I’m so busy. And they felt isolated.

And they would say when you talk to so-and-so, tell her I said hello. We heard

that theme over and over, that they were lacking a community.

Also, they didn’t really have great evaluation or assessment data. We would

ask them if they felt they were meeting their goals, and they would say well

the girls, they come back every Saturday and they love the pizza. And we

knew that that didn’t necessarily mean that they were meeting their girls -

engaging girls in science or engineering, whatever their topic was. And they

had lots of questions about how they could evaluate their program. And of

course it’s difficult sometimes to get funding if you don’t have assessment or

evaluation information. So there’s also lots of interest in how to get funding

for their programs.

Around the same time, Microsoft had hired a new diversity person who

reached out to me and said how can I connect with teachers and program folks

that are working with girls? I want to invite them to the Microsoft Campus.

I’d like to connect them with some of our female programmers. And that

group is called the Hoppers, it’s a grasshopper. And I’d like to give them

things. But there wasn’t really a list of them.

And then I also talked to a number of female professionals -- most notably

these women at Boeing, women of color who were engineers and wanted to

mentor girls. And they didn’t know how to find girls. They wanted to invite

them up there and they said I’m sure there are teachers that have girls that

would love to come up here and we can tell them about how exciting our work

is, but we don’t know how to find them.

When we came back together, we all had similar stories and we realized that

there was really a need to create an infrastructure to connect all of these

programs together to provide them with professional development --

specifically around evaluation, but also there was a need for different

resources and, as I said, professional development -- and to connect them with

corporations and higher education.

We were based sort of on the idea of collective impact, and if you bring all of

the stakeholders together in an organized fashion who care about a specific

topic, that you can make a difference.

We launched the Northwest Girls Collaborative Project. We received funding

from the National Science Foundation. And then there was a lot of interest

from other states, and so we’ve been funded by the National Science

Foundation since that time, since 2002, and have now replicated in 39 states.

Slide 11: Our very specific goals -- and you can see how this builds upon that

story -- is to maximize access to shared resources. There are lots of great

resources and strategies and activities available and rather than creating

resources, we try to connect programs to those great resources. Thereby, we

strengthen the capacity of girl-serving STEM programs, and we believe that

through collaboration, we can create the tipping point for gender equity in

STEM.

Slide 12: So then I have a master where you can see our national network of

collaborative teams. You can go on our Web site. And if you’re not connected

to a collective in your state, you can find the contact person. Each

collaborative offers professional development. Most of them have a

newsletter.

Slide 13: And you can see on the slide it says NGCP Activities. We list the

things that happen virtually, sort of on a national level. We have a very rich

project Web site. We have something called The Connectory, which is that list

of programs across the United States. That list is both programs that serve

girls and also just generally all youth in STEM. There are about 11,000

programs in The Connectory right now. And program providers can also do

sort of a matching in there and find partners to work on for specific projects.

We have a newsletter, strong social media, and in a few minutes I’m going to

talk about our FabFems Role Model Directory, and then we do national

webinars around specific topics. We archive all of our webinars. I think we’ve

got about 45 of them archived on our Web site, if you want to troll through

there and look at some of that great content.

And then as I said, locally our collaboratives offer professional development,

they do conferences and forums, and they have mini-grants which encourage

programs to work together on specific topics. And they have newsletters and

have a number of local resources.

Slide 14: Why is collaboration important? So as I said, we’ve been funded by

the National Science Foundation and so -- for many years -- and so we have a

very rigorous evaluation and we’ve collected lots of great data that actually

demonstrates that high levels of collaboration actually result in better services

for girls, that it creates efficiency and effectiveness and overall capacity. And

so through the work that we’re doing with programs, girls are better served.

Slide 15: I also have another slide here that talks specifically about the

benefits that occur for girl-serving STEM programs -- data that we collected

in 2013 and we’re about ready to unveil a new research study with more

recent data. But via collaboration, programs felt that they were more effective,

it reduced their feelings of organizational isolation, it helped them to be more

efficient, and it actually increased their program’s sustainability.

I have a quote here. One program provider said, “The use of informal learning

resources provided by NGCP has allowed my program to meet the needs of

diverse learners by better understanding the barriers to STEM. And because of

NGCP, I feel empowered with techniques and resources to design, organize,

and execute a sustainable program knowing that I’m using best practices.”

So, I’m going to stop for a minute and we’ll see before I move onto sort of

messaging see if there are any questions about that very quick NGCP

overview.

Woman: Hi. Our state is blue on the map, and I’m wondering how we become green.

Karen Peterson: That’s a great - so what state are you in?

Woman: We’re in Nebraska.

Karen Peterson: Nebraska. Well first, you can send me an email because really what happens

is any state that isn’t green -- and it’s funny, we used to have the same people

in red, and because of the year that it is, we changed the colors. We don’t

want anyone thinking we were political.

Basically what happens is a state organizes themselves. You come to us and

say we’d like to be a collaborate, and we’ll provide training and resources.

You form a leadership team made up of all the different stakeholders I talked

about, and you move forward.

And so what I do is as people say to me I’m interested in being part of a

collaborative, I sort of collect all of the names. In fact, I have about ten names

in my Nebraska folder.

Woman: Great.

Karen Peterson: So reach out to me,

Woman: Ok.

Karen Peterson: And I can connect you all together. Also, anyone can be, you can certainly be

a part of our newsletter and be a part of our webinars. And, let’s see. You’ve

got states next to you also too that are involved, so depending on how close

you are to the state line you can also take part. So, but yes, reach out to me.

Send me an email and we’ll see if we can connect you.

Woman: Thank you so much.

Karen Peterson: Sure. Other questions?

Man: I have a question. Hello?

Karen Peterson: Sure, yes I’m here. Go for it.

Man: Yes, I’m from Pennsylvania. My name is Axl Diaz. Is it important to help

young Latina women here in the USA to get more involved in STEM?

Karen Peterson: I’m sorry. Could you repeat that? I don’t know. I think the phone broke up a

little bit right where you...

Man: Yes, I’m sorry. Can you hear me now?

Karen Peterson: Yes, that’s better. Thanks.

Man: Is there any program to help young Latina women to get more involved in

STEM? For young Latina women?

Karen Peterson: Yes, there’s actually quite a few really exciting initiatives happening. The

National Center for Women in IT actually just launched something called

Technologic Chicas -- I always have a problem saying that --

TECHNOLOchicas. And you can go there http://technolochicas.org/. That’s

actually funded by Telemundo and a number of other partners.

There’s actually quite an emphasis now on Latina women because they are

within sort of the girl numbers, are very underrepresented. And there’s some

very specific cultural barriers there as well. I know that I’ve often worked

with role models who are Latinas, and they can be very helpful because it’s

one thing to just say become an engineer. But it’s another thing to make sure

that the family is supportive of that.

So I can make sure that you have that resource as well.

Man: Ok, thank you.

Karen Peterson: Yes. Any other questions?

Woman: I have a question.

Karen Peterson: Sure.

Woman: The collaboration, is it only for girls of underrepresented? Because I’m part of

a group. I’m a troop leader for girls that are mixed. And I’m technically a

leader for them, so if it’s something that has conditions that you have to meet

certain criteria in order to use the resources?

Karen Peterson: No, we are wide open.

Woman: Ok.

Karen Peterson: So reach out to us. Yes, we do not have specific criteria. And we, I have to say

that, I mean, we’re very collaborative and very open and we really think of

STEM broadly, very broadly. And we serve about I would say as a program

center network serve about probably 18 million girls, but we also serve about

12 million boys because many of the programs that work with girls also work

with boys.

We like to say that we’re focused on serving girls but it’s not girls only. We’re

very careful about our language. Because one of the things that we learned

from research is all of the strategies and techniques that encourage girls to go

into STEM work for boys too. Many of them are just good teaching

facilitation. It’s not that these strategies wouldn’t be helpful for boys as well.

Woman: Thank you.

Karen Peterson: Slide 16: All right. So, I’d like to talk just a little bit about messaging. We’ve

done lots of summer camps and after school programs. And last year, I spoke

to a number of groups that were focused on competition. And there is some

research that girls do not do well in competition. It can actually turn them off

to STEM. And so, we put together a number of resources around messaging,

and you can find these on our Web site. I can also send them along so that

they can get posted. And they’re actually fairly simple recommendations.

And it’s surprising to me often, you know, we think about some cool photo or

maybe you’re doing a workshop around robots. And so you put a big picture

of a robot up there. And you’re not necessarily aware that that could actually

be something that would turn off a girl or other young people to your content,

even though it’s a super-fun workshop.

Slide 17: And so, some of the recommendations that we have are around using

images of people, not things, and to not use photos of say gears or mechanical

images, because these things are not necessarily acceptable to somebody that

might not even know what it is. And to use descriptive words like discovery

and design and imagination and innovation.

And I know that while we might want to just call something like the robot

camp, that’s not necessarily going to be engaging, especially to girls. But it’s

something about change your world that really incorporates what research

tells us about what girls care about, you can encourage girls to be a part of

whatever the activity or the camp is that you’re doing.

And to describe STEM professionals as creative problem solvers -- and again,

we know from research that many girls think that engineers sit behind a

computer all day, and that it’s not exciting work. And so really, digging a little

deeper into what really happens with that work -- you’re problem solving,

you’re working as part of a team, can again, be something that is much more

engaging and to help girls to consider STEM.

And then to emphasize the opportunity to shape the future, because again, we

know that especially girls, but all young people are really thinking about how

they can help change the world. And so, providing an opportunity for them to

realize that engaging in one of these activities can help them think about

shaping the future can be very helpful.

I have a very quick story about a summer camp we were doing once, which

was around robotics. And some of the programming that happened we would

just notice it just really bogged the girls down. And there was no way around

it, like they really needed to learn the programming and program their ROV at

that specific point of the camp.

We found this amazing young woman who had actually worked on a robot, an

ROV that during an oil spill actually made a big difference in helping plug a

big leak in the gulf. And she would come and tell the story about how the

work that her team did saved the animals in the gulf because only the robot

could go so deep. Like a human could not dive down that deep. The pressure

was too strong. But a robot, an ROV, could go down and save the sea.

And we saw such a great sort of improvement in the attitude of the girls when

we would have her come right at that sort of pivotal point and talk about, this

work that you’re learning, this programming and coding that you’re learning

is really important because you too could be involved in this kind of project.

So, really thinking about when you want to insert those sort of role models or

messaging recommendations can really make a difference of the success of

the work that you’re doing.

So, any questions about messaging before I move on?

Woman: Hi. So I have a question.

Karen Peterson: Sure.

Woman: So when you’re talking about describing it, so if we’re having a workshop or

we’re having a talk or something and we want to invite girls titling, of course

we can always call it something like change your world. But how do we get

the messaging out so that Mom and Dad too, or that teachers understand or

other organizations who might be supporting us also understand what it is

we’re trying to accomplish? Because we don’t want to make it a surprise.

Karen Peterson: Right.

Woman: You know what I mean?

Karen Peterson: Right, yes.

Woman: So it’s like we can’t, if we’re having a robotics camp, we can’t never use the

word robotics.

Karen Peterson: I know. It’s so true. Well, I would say use your tagline. Use a tagline if you

need to, so you can have that “Change Your World; Using Robotics” such and

such. Also, I mean I think sometimes you can’t avoid having different

marketing pieces. You have a piece that goes to parents and a piece that’s for

young people. But sometimes you just have to do that. You have to use your

audience and you can’t have one piece that works for everybody. I mean, I

guess it sort of depends on your budget and how you’re marketing it.

But I would say a tagline would work really well. And using maybe multiple

photos. So maybe you have photos of young people involved in something

really fun and then maybe you also have a photo or a box or something that

sort of lists the skills or things that are going to happen.

So yes, I realize that, because you’re also recruiting, you’re doing outreach to

parents. So, you have to also maybe on the backside you have more

information for parents that can be helpful. Does that help?

Woman: So much.

Karen Peterson: Yes. Great. Any other questions?

Adrienne Provenzano: Yes. Hi, this is Adrienne Provenzano. I’m a Solar System Ambassador in

Indiana, and I had a question. You made a comment about competition and

the research on girls being turned off by that. And then I think about how

being able to compete is a very important skill. So, what are the ways that

competition is branded in a positive way for girls? I mean, I know there are

some all-girls teams at First Robotics and there are some other approaches like

that. Are you finding other methods that are helpful?

Karen Peterson: Yes. And actually, I can refer you again. We love the NG Web Resources.

They have actually a document called something like the top ten ways

competitions can help girls. And I’ll send a link along.

But I think it’s thinking first about encouraging girls to work in teams and to

collaborate, because if they work in a team, the competition isn’t as, I’m

trying not to use the word damaging, but it can be difficult if they’re alone.

And to also think about the gender balance. So if you have one girl on an all-

boys team that can be a difficult experience. But if you have a team of girls

competing against other teams of girls and boys, just really watching that

balance. And it’s true,I mean, competition is something that we all have to

learn how to deal with.

It’s just that being aware, especially of young people, of sort of how fragile

that engagement is at that point and also, thinking about having multiple

winners. And actually in some way this gets back to that specific feedback

that certainly you could have a winner, but you could have winners in

different categories best design.

You might have a robot that’s the fastest robot, but you might have one that’s

the best design. And so that way you can still accommodate some of the teams

or the young people that weren’t the fastest one.

And help with that confidence, because now that I mentioned around the

research, really confidence is a huge issue. And to compete on a regular basis

and to lose is certainly not going to be - and for some girls who are very

resilient it might be encouraging. But for some young people it’d be like

forget it. I’m not doing that. Is that helpful?

Adrienne Provenzano: Yes. So you kind of have to look at maybe who your population is as a

group and as individuals, and maybe not have a one size fits all competition

experience as well.

Karen Peterson: Exactly. And I think to think about ways that you can provide additional

recognition, best team player. There really is something to that, Miss

Congeniality. There really is something to that, so that many of the young

people that are in the competition can feel successful in some specific area.

Adrienne Provenzano: Right. Great. All right, thank you.

Karen Peterson: Yes, sure.

Woman: Is there time for another question?

Karen Peterson: Sorry, yes, I can have another question.

Woman: So like I said, I mentor a group of girls only, a robotics team. And most of the

competitions they go to are mixed -- and when I say mixed, they are

predominantly all boys teams.

And girls typically don’t do very well. And the mindset that the girls come

back with repeatedly is, yes we’re all girls. Whatever we did, if you came like

52 out of 60, that’s great.

And almost they are telling themselves that that’s all they’re good for. And we

can’t do any better because of course boys will be better than us. And in order

to get into their head the strong idea of equality and equality of opportunity, is

really a little hard. It’s subtle and it’s hard because you can say only this much

but they are also exposed to the outer world. Especially in high school. What

does the research show that in group ages -- especially the middle school ages,

where girls typically kind of decide I’m good at math and I’m bad at math --

should they go to a mostly only all-girls competitions and kind of build up the

confidence before they go to mixed competitions? Or the research shows that

there isn’t any difference?

Karen Peterson: Right. So, what the research shows is that environment is important. And so,

and I’m not going to say an all-girls environment is the best. I’m not going to

say that. But I will say an all-girls environment might be more helpful for

some girls than others, because it does provide that environment that’s

supportive and helps to build confidence.

There are many girls that may be able to be the only girl’s team among many

boys and they would have that resilience and that would be fine for them,

right? So again we have to look at sort of individual needs and how do we

provide access for as many girls as possible.

And I think actually talking, asking girls what might be most helpful to them

is really key. That if you’re going to an all-girls school feel like a better

environment for a girl, or being involved in an all-girls team or all-girls

specific activity, if that feels better for a girl, then that’s the best thing for her.

I wish I could say there was a magic bullet. And that definitely one thing is

better than the other, but unfortunately, it’s not the case. But there is research

that girls that go to an all-girls school do feel more confident and more

resilient. But again that doesn’t mean that every single girl should go to an all-

girls school.

Woman: Ok, thank you. That answers a lot of my questions.

Karen Peterson: Sure. I’m not sure where that beeping is coming from, but just someone is

beeping.

Slide 18: All right, so I might as well move on here. I have one slide here that

is just about the Connectory, and as I mentioned before it’s the largest

database of STEM programs in the United States. It’s actually international.

And so it’s a great resource to either sign up as a program provider. You need

to sign up and enter your information about your program to find partners.

That way...

Man: Excuse me a second. We are getting an intermittent beep, triple beep, about

every ten seconds or so on the line. Is anybody else getting that noise?

Karen Peterson: Yes. I’m hearing that too. Maybe should we mute folks? Or what would be

best? That seemed to help, right?

Man: Yes, that seemed to cut the last one. Thank you.

Karen Peterson: Good. Ok. I’ll keep going. So just a reminder, you can go to the

Connectory.org. It’s funded primarily by Time Warner Cable and Google. The

front facing page is really designed for families. It sources opportunities in

your -- it locates for you -- and sources opportunities. Opportunities are time

bound events. And then there’s another provider portal. We’re actually going

through a redesign right now. We’re going to be launching a new site in

March that is mobile enabled. And we’re working with Google to increase the

number of computer science programs that are in that site as well.

Slide 19: So then, my last few slides are about another resource that we have,

and that’s the FabFems Project. It’s an online role model database. We again,

I told you that origination story of where we heard from programs about

things that they needed. And so we designed the National Girls Collaborative

Project to meet those needs.

We also had been hearing from a number of the programs that we work with

that they had been having trouble finding role model for site visits or to use as

examples, when they were doing STEM activities. Slide 20: And so we

created the FabFems Role Model Database. There are about 800 women, role

models, in this database. We actually launched it at the White House in 2013,

and there are quite a few federal female STEM professionals in this database.

The audience is really again, for role models, girl-serving programs, and

parents and girls. I’ve got some slides here about what is involved in the

profile. Slide 21: I encourage any of you who are female STEM professionals

to get your profile in there. Slide 22: You can identify your level of

engagement. You can be an online role model and just basically tell your story

and be there for girls to learn about what’s possible. You could offer job

shadowing. You can say in there that you’re available for field trips, or to

come and speak. So, it’s whatever is comfortable in terms of the individual

person’s availability.

Slide 23: And we also have a feature here girls can contact FabFems and ask

questions. This is something that we monitor on the back end. It’s a very safe

environment. And I’m just going to throw out a question. What do you think

is the most asked question that girls ask FabFems in the FabFems Role Model

Database?

Woman: I’m going to guess what did you like as a kid?

Karen Peterson: That’s funny. That’s pretty close. Actually, the most asked question is “What

is your favorite color? And we actually have some role models who say I

don’t know how to answer this question. Or do you have a pet? And it’s really

so amazing to see these young girls making connections. Because they want to

know that here’s this amazing woman and they’ve read about what she’s done

and they see her picture, that she’s a person that has interests. She has a

favorite color. She might have a pet.

Slide 24: We actually work with people to make sure that the profile is

engaging and has that kind of information. And we have a tremendously high

amount of hits on this Web site and we get notes from girls asking us

questions. So, it’s always growing. And so I wanted to let you know it’s a

resource for you to use or also, as I said before, I encourage you if you are a

FabFem or you know someone, we’re always trying to grow that database.

We actually have quite a few FabFems that are underutilized and so again, if

you’re looking for somebody to Skype in or come and visit, you can do a

search via zip code. So, feel free to use it.

And as I said, there’s interaction between FabFems and girls.

Organizations go in there and look for mentors for their programs. And as I

said, there’s in person as well as online interactions possible.

Slide 26: And I put this slide in here just as one of the inquiries that we saw

happen from a freshman in college. And she actually wrote to a role model

and asked if she could do a job shadow for a day. And there’s some

information there about how to create a user name and password and create a

profile. We do look at all of the profiles and approve them and make sure that

everything is appropriate before they go public.

And then I have a - go ahead.

Woman: Can I ask a question?

Karen Peterson: There’s a question. Yes, go for it.

Woman: You’re talking about this Connectory Web site. It’s for STEM professionals in

the federal government?

Karen Peterson: Slide 27: That’s FabFems. I moved onto another Web site. It’s called

FabFems.org. And you can enter an affiliation and one can be that you’re a

federal employee. The White House asks us to add that because they’ve been

suggesting - there’s an initiative around -- I think it’s called something like a

Million Hours of Service -- that I think some of the females, STEM

professionals, used FabFems as a place that we can send programs to.

Woman: You’re saying F-A-S-T-S-T-E-M.org?

Karen Peterson: Fab F-A-B-F-E-M-S dot org. FabFems.org. And I think the Web site is on

Slide 27 once you have it.

Slide 28: And then I have, I put up the slide here of a drawing that shows how

changing perceptions about STEM careers can be done. And we have

examples, research that was actually done at the Fermilab in Illinois that

shows how a girl’s perception changed after interacting with some scientists.

So, she went from describing -- and you can see that first drawing -- she went

from thinking that a scientist was crazy, talking too fast, and annoying -- that

was actually what she said, annoying -- to normal people with not so normal

jobs that can be exciting, that lead normal lives, and can be interested in

dancing, pottery, jogging, and even racquetball.

And she’s got this cool drawing here of this woman with some very cool blue

shades. I put the URL up there for the research. And I just love this drawing,

because this happened like within the course of a day, like it was a pre- post-

test where they asked girls to draw before they went and had a job shadow

with a female scientist. And you can see that we can actually create change.

Slide 29: And then the last slide that I have before my contact information I

just put that up as action planning, because I always like to challenge all the

people that I speak with to think about what specific thing you can do that

would make a difference for girls and young people of color. And I know that

many of you are already offering programs and activities. So I just encourage

you to think about what kind of action you can create.

I know just because you’re on this call and you’re part of this community that

you have a lot to offer and encourage for the young people that we hope that

will consider STEM careers in the future.

Woman: Hi again. I have a question.

Karen Peterson: Yes.

Woman: I would like to know if you’ve had any research or you’ve seen any research

done with girls who have gone through programming, STEM-based

programming, and are now either 12th graders or entering college or in

college? And what supports could we provide for those students to continue

looking for STEM careers or having the tools to be in STEM careers? What

types of supports do we feel are needed throughout their pathway to that

awesome career in STEM?

Karen Peterson: Yes, so there are actually several great university level outreach programs that

actually do just that. And I can provide some links to them, where they really,

first they act sort of as a bridge between high school and for incoming

freshman.

And then they have - and they’re sort of versions of these say freshman

interest groups, where they connect with the girls when they’re choosing their

classes and to provide support and connect them with role models throughout

the way, because you’ve identified a key problem. That we can get girls super

excited. They can decide to go into a STEM career. They can go to college,

and then they could be in a class with 500 other students. And all of a sudden,

they don’t have that kind of support that they had in high school. There are a

number. I know Carnegie Mellon, University of Texas at Austin, there are a

number of universities that are working to provide that sort of support

throughout, because it really does take a village. And I would say that one of

the most effective strategies I’ve seen is peer support, where you have a either

a recent graduate or say a senior level young woman provide support to an

incoming freshman. But that sort of peer support - and even actually college

freshmen working with high school students, that is I’ve seen highly effective.

Woman: Ok.

Karen Peterson: Because it’s much more relevant to young girls.

Woman: Right. Great. Thank you.

Karen Peterson: Slide 30: So I know we’re at the top of the hour, and I have my contact

information there. I welcome questions and requests for additional resources,

and I can also send along links to some of the things that I mentioned that

aren’t necessarily on my slides. And I’m happy to continue providing support

as we go along. I just thank you all for your attention and for all the great

work that you’re doing. And thanks for inviting me Amelia.

Amelia Chapman: Sure. And do you have time to answer a few more questions that people might

have held until the end?

Karen Peterson: Yes, I’m good.

Amelia Chapman: Ok. And by the way, while we’re all unmuting, whatever Karen sends us I

will be putting up on that page. So it will all be there.

Karen Peterson: Yes. I’ll just put all of the things I mentioned -- I kept track -- on a Word

document and you can PDF it and upload it.

Amelia Chapman: Great. Any final questions? Ok, it sounds like people might’ve just - I’m

sorry. We had one out there?

Woman: No questions. I just want to say Ms. Peterson, thank you for a very great,

informative presentation. It gives me a lot to go with, and I look forward to

emailing you with some further questions.

Karen Peterson: Great. I look forward to getting that email. I’m happy to assist and provide

whatever resources and connections I can.

Woman: All right. Keep up the good work.

Karen Peterson: Thank you. Right back at you.

Woman: All right.

Woman: So one question. All of the material will be summited in the NASA

Nationwide Web site?

Kay Ferrari: Yes, it will.

Woman: Ok, thank you.

Amelia Chapman: All right. Well, if there’s no more questions, I’m going to go ahead and be the

first -- well the second -- to thank Ms. Peterson for speaking with us today.

And thank all of you for joining us.

I’d like to remind you to join the conversation next week when we will be

hearing on Monday, we’ll be having a heliophysics talk. We’ll be learning

about May’s transit of mercury and the 2016 eclipse. And on Wednesday,

we’ll be hearing from Dr. Fran Bagenal of the New Horizons mission. And

details on both of those talks are coming out at this moment, so stay tuned.

Thank you very much.

Woman: Thank you.

END

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