The National Girls Collaborative Project

I'm writing to share some of my experiences from  2012 National Collaboration Conference hosted by the National Girls Collaborative Project last week.  I had the opportunity to meet dozens of representatives from girl serving STEM organizations and discuss how we can collaborate to move towards supporting more women and girls in STEM.

Among the organizations I learned about at the conference was the National Center for Women and Information Technology.  The NCWIT website is full of information and resources for increasing the participation of girls and women in computing and IT.  They also sponsored the Collaboration Conference reception and the Coalition co-hosted some fun, hands-on activities along with our friends at CAISE and Techbridge.  Check out the fun we had!

We adapted an activity from the NISE Network and made edible gummy capsules out of cranberry and grape juices, using food grade sodium alginate.  The result?  Science you can eat!

 

Here's Kalie from CAISE talking about a few activities available on HowToSmile.org.  This website is full of fun, high quality, hands-on activities!

And here are some of the fabulous folks of Techbridge, including Executive Director Linda Kekelis.  One of the highlights of the Collaboration Conference for me was attending Techbridge's workshop on career exploration in engineering.  When designing engineering activities for girls, I learned that it's important for them to see real life examples of women who are passionate about their jobs and doing interesting things with their science training.  We watched a video from PBS' Design Squad that was great for prompting discussion and setting context for engineering challenges.

I left NGCP feeling inspired and motivated to keep looking for opportunities to collaborate and work towards a brighter future through science in after school!

Twitter Chat about Digital Learning

The Collaborative for Building After-School Systems (CBASS) will host a Twitter chat tomorrow, Wednesday February 29, 2 PM to 3 PM EST to explore how schools and community organizations can help kids learn anytime, anywhere using digital media, mobile devices and online games. During this conversation, you will have the opportunity to share your experiences, learn best practices, and discuss how you can overcome challenges in using technology effectively in out-of-school time.

The chat will feature representatives from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and PBS, Coalition Director Carol Tang (@SciAfterSchool), the Afterschool Alliance (@afterschool4all), and other special guests from community organizations and schools who are actively using technology to expand learning for kids.

To join the chat and see what others are saying:

1. Go to tweetchat.com and search on the hashtag #techafter3.
2. You do not need a Twitter account to follow the chat, but you do need one to comment or ask questions. If you need to set up a twitter account, you can sign up at http://www.twitter.com. It’s free to join and only takes a minute.
3. To join the discussion, sign into TweetChat using your Twitter account and enter your tweets in the box at the top of the page. TweetChat automatically includes the hashtag for you.
4. Each tweet is limited to 140 characters (including the hashtag #techafter3) but feel free to multiple tweets to pose a question or respond to a comment.

CBASS’s Twitter handle is @CBASS_National. Feel free to submit questions in advance, either by sending CBASS a message on Twitter or emailing them to emorgan@tascorp.org.