Increasing the Interest of Elementary School Girls in STEM Fields Through Outreach Activities
Increasing the Interest of Elementary School Girls in STEM Fields Through Outreach Activities
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通过外展活动提高小学生对 STEM 领域的兴趣
DOI：
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发表时间：
2019
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Dr. Jennifer M. Bastiaan
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文献类型：
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作者：
Dr. Jennifer M. Bastiaan
尽管多元化STEM劳动力的价值众所周知，但妇女和少数民族在STEM领域的代表性仍然不足。特别是，工程本科学位授予北美的女性和少数族裔工程专业学生的比例低于男性。研究表明，女孩和少数民族学生在学习数学和科学科目时的自信心较低，通常是在小学的早期，这最终导致STEM本科课程的兴趣和入学率较低。为了消除对女孩和少数群体在STEM研究中的能力的负面成见，这种成见破坏了这些群体的信心，女工程师协会设立了女孩工程探索日。这是底特律公立学校系统为小学女生举办的年度全天STEM外展活动。一批批女孩参加了这项活动，志愿者导师是在当地工业工作的女工程师，从而为女孩提供了榜样。这些女孩和她们的导师通过一系列STEM活动循环，这些活动旨在有趣和吸引人，并提高她们对STEM职业的兴趣。在这项工作中，两个女孩的工程探索活动最近创建和详细介绍，传统的电路活动和原始的自动驾驶汽车活动。这两项活动的所有材料都是作为教育资源提供的，这样，大学预科教育工作者就可以在自己的教室和外联活动中利用这些活动，而几乎没有修改。此外，还分析并展示了活动中学生调查的结果。结论是，自动驾驶汽车等现代主题非常值得进行活动开发，因为学生们更热衷于这些活动，而不是他们以前可能接触过的电路活动等衍生练习。
Despite the known value of a diverse STEM workforce, women and minorities continue to be under-represented in STEM fields. Engineering undergraduate degrees, in particular, are awarded to women and minority engineering students in North America at a lower rate compared to their male counterparts. Research has shown that low self-confidence in learning math and science subjects starts at a young age in girls and minority students, often in the early years of elementary school, and this ultimately leads to low interest and enrollment in STEM undergraduate programs. In an attempt to combat negative stereotypes about the capabilities of girls and minorities in STEM studies, which undermine the confidence of these groups, the Society of Women Engineers has instituted the Girls’ Engineering Exploration day. This is an annual, all-day STEM outreach event for elementary school girls in the Detroit Public School system. Groups of girls participate in the event with volunteer mentors who are female engineers working in local industry, thus providing the girls with role models. The groups of girls and their mentors cycle through a series of STEM activities that are meant to be fun and engaging, and to increase their interest in STEM careers. In this work, two Girls’ Engineering Exploration activities recently created and presented are described in detail, a traditional electrical circuits activity and an original autonomous vehicles activity. All of the materials for both activities are provided as educational resources, such that pre-college educators can take advantage of these activities in their own classrooms and outreach events with little to no modification. Furthermore, the results of student surveys from the activities are analyzed and presented. The conclusion is that modern topics such as autonomous vehicles are well worth the activity development effort, as students are more engaged in these activities than in derivative exercises such as the circuits activity, which they may have been exposed to previously.