SciGirls Supporters | Engineer Your Life

Dream Big. Love what you do. These messages might not be what you'd expect from the engineering field. But while numbers of women in some areas of science are healthy, the engineering field (that tricky "E" in STEM!) continues to struggle recruiting young women for its ranks.

Engineer Your Life (EYL) is a national messaging campaign designed to reposition engineering as an exciting, rewarding career choice for young women. EYL's messages—creativity has its rewards, explore the possibilities, and make a world of difference—are all part of a national campaign designed to encourage college bound girls to explore engineering.

The Engineer Your Life Web site anchors the national campaign, and is meant for high school girls and the adults in their lives (parents, counselors, teachers, and other educators) who want to learn more about what life and work are like for engineers. Be sure to check out the ten great reasons why you'll love engineering!

Know another great engineering encouragement program for girls? Tell us about it!

SciGirls Supporters | BrainCake

The field of Gender Equity in STEM is full of helpful professionals who work hard to support each other's work. SciGirls wants to take a minute to introduce you to one of these groups: the smart, sweet people at BrainCake.

BrainCake is an inspired program of the Girls, Math & Science Partnership at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Science Center. The Partnership's mission is to engage, educate, and embrace girls as architects of change. Working with girls ages 11-17 and their parents, teachers, and mentors, they draw organizations, stakeholders, and communities together in an effort to ensure that girls succeed in math and science.

BrainCake helps girls be confident, solve problems, and think independently. It also engages girls in current science, helping them understand its relevance to their life today. They create and link girls to programs that educate and prepare them to understand and use science in their everyday lives. And, they embrace girls as architects of change - envisioning, planning, organizing, shaping, and building a better world - with math and science as their tools.

And BrainCake's fabulously cute website reaches girls from around the globe who are interested in changing the world with math and science! Join them at BrainCake.org, the online sisterhood for girls ages 11–17 who want to change the world with math and science!

SciGirls Mentors | Women's Initiative at MIT

What do designing pharmaceutical drugs and prosthetic limbs, Internet programs and gaming software, and eco-friendly buildings and clean water systems have in common? They are all jobs for engineers.

This is the message engineering students from the Women’s Initiative, an MIT student program dedicated to encouraging more women to pursue careers in engineering, deliver to girls nationwide. During the month of January, enthusiastic women from the School of Engineering at MIT travel widely, speaking with high school girls about the excitement of careers in engineering.

“We want women to know that engineering is an option for them,” says Janice Mathew, an MIT junior who is majoring in chemical engineering.

Fellow student An Vu, who studies nuclear engineering, notes that visiting engineers in her own high school helped her decide on engineering. Today, as a senior at MIT, she's glad she made the leap and likes the idea of encouraging other young women to do the same. “It’s such a fun career path with many options. We do a lot of group work and use our science, math and analytical skills to solve problems. Engineering is a chance to make a difference in the world and to help other people, and that’s the message we want to get out to these young ladies.”

Want to know more? Click here to read an article about Women’s Initiative mentors recent visit to Canyon Lake High in the hill country of Texas. Know another great mentoring program like the MIT Women’s Initiative? Tell SciGirls all about it!

SciGirls Mentor | Nerd Girls

Brains are beautiful.
Geek is Chic.
Smart is sexy.

This is the working mantra of Nerd Girls, a growing, global movement that celebrates the smart-girl individuality that’s revolutionizing our future.

Nerd Girls want to encourage other girls to change their world through Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, while embracing their feminine power.

The first Nerd Girls Club was founded by Dr. Karen Panetta at Tufts University to empower her female engineering students and challenge the stereotypes about women in engineering. Dr. Panetta has been instrumental in shifting attitudes about women engineers, utilizing film, television and web media to extend the reach of Nerd Girls.

If you know any powerful mentors like Nerd Girls, tell us about them. We're waiting to hear from you!

Behind the Scenes: The SciGirls Team

Here a little background information on our project. SciGirls is funded by the National Science Foundation. We have two major partners: The National Girls Collaborative Project, which is based in Seattle, and The Franklin Institute, one of the nation's premier science centers, which is located in Philadelphia.

Both organizations have extensive programs and background knowledge in promoting STEM education for girls. The SciGirls project is fortunate to have their such an amazing team. Do you know any great STEM organizations?

Behind the Scenes: Hello, howdy, have a seat!

Welcome to the SciGirls blog, where you can learn all about the development of SciGirls, a new TV series and website for PBS Kids!

You've no doubt heard the saying "It takes a village to raise a child." Well at SciGirls, we know it takes a community to inspire, encourage and enable 'tween girls girls to pursue their interests in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). So we're inviting you to participate in the SciGirls development process.

As we create our series, we want to hear from you—girls, parents, teachers, mentors, and working scientists alike. Our first 13 episodes won't air until sometime in 2010, but we're already busy dreaming all that SciGirls can be.

Stay tuned!