International Day of Women and Girls in Science, 11 February

 

On the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, let's do our best as educators to address and transform the existing gender gap: at present, less than 30 per cent of researchers worldwide are women. According to UNESCO data , only around 30 per cent of all female students select STEM-related fields in higher education. Globally, female students’ enrolment is particularly low in ICT (3 per cent), Natural Science, Mathematics and Statistics (5 per cent) and in Engineering, manufacturing and construction (8 per cent).

 From these lines, I will try to help teachers who read me by offering several  classroom proposals:

 

•  In the Autumn of 2019, The Hastings Academy and Robsack Wood Academy worked on songs about Women Scientists. Songwriter Anna Page worked together with students and they created some inspiring  compositions.  Among them, there is a song that has touched my heart. It is  called "Women who were scientists" and I would say that it  conveys a very powerful message. If you want to know why, listen to the audio file and analyze   the lyrics  . I suggest that  students should  listen to the song and get familiar with the rhythm pattern.  Then,  you could  ask students   to work in pairs and  write a stanza about another famous woman who was forgotten till now.  

 

• The play "Women scientists: past, present and future" was premiered in March 2016 at the University of Seville.  Although it is in Spanish, they have kindly provided us with a comic, a  didactical guide  and a quiz.           

 

• Last but not least, making women visible site  is a collaborative project in four languages which offers a wide variety of activities in order to help teachers to foster women's visibility at our schools. Among the inspiring proposals they offer, I would highlight  a video game and  a card game. 

 

Once again, thank you very much for the great effort you make in order to let  our students  be aware of the need to bridge the gender gap. Please,  write to me through the comment section on this blog so that I can know about your students' reactions to the proposal you choose to celebrate February 11th.