Lasers for Ladies : STEM Outreach
Abstract
While significant progress has been made in increasing the percentage of women in engineering and science over the past decade, parity is still out of reach. Previous research has shown that the tipping point for girls occurs during middle school. In other words, while many girls enter middle school planning to head into sciences, due their environment and experiences as well as peer-pressure, they deviate from these plans. Therefore, it is important to focus outreach efforts on this vulnerable population. However, University outreach efforts typically are based on pre-arranged teamings with partner K-12 institutions. While this approach does facilitate the legalities of such efforts, it also limits the ability of students from other schools to experience or attend outreach events. Additionally, the outreach events are rarely disseminated outside of the schools boundary or continue more than once, further limiting the impact. We need to find ways to make outreach events as broadly and widely available as possible, and the first step is to remove these restrictions. The focus of the Laser for Ladies event is to simultaneously solve both problems. The event is free and open to all middle and high school girls in the Los Angeles community. It is being held on the USC campus, which is located adjacent to the metro line and in downtown LA, to reduce transportation barriers. After the event, several of the activities will be translated to the California Science Center to create a permanent optics-focused display. This will enable continued dissemination to an even broader audience.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Jun 10, 2016
- Source ID
- N000141612028
Entities
People
- Andrea Armani
Organizations
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy
- University of Southern California