AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITY WOMEN – WHC

Our goal is to build critical thinkers and problem solvers of the next generation.
– Rose Ennis President

“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” – Einstein

• Growing Roses and Creating Rivets
• Growing mentors for teachers for K-5 CS Education

This group started in 2011 as an action research group to brainstorm why there are so few Women in Stem.  Goal was to expand what our 27 years of Expanding Your Horizons Conferences provided to break the barriers for girls in STEM connected careers. Title IX equitable access to CS education is growing exponentially. AAUW now supports Tech Tek.

• In Year One we read the AAUW Book, “Why So Few” and imagined what we could do to implement solutions in the Houston area. The book and other details are located at www.aauw.org/research/why-so-few.
• Next we discussed the “Mindset, the New Psychology of Success” by Carol Dweck to bring about a growth-mind set. In 2013 we were talking about the problem and still are – Listen to Science Friday and the STEM Gender Gap. We need role models in schools sharing hands-on activities connected to STEM professions. Can you help Solve the problem for Women in CS and Engineering?
• Each year we explored more ideas from the Hidden Figures Book study, field trips, and the Master Class about Jane Goodall.

Advocacy ideas:

• Research from AAUW Why So Few Women in STEM fields shows lack of Spatial Reasoning a major factor. Yet, teachers rarely have the time to support the hands-on projects needed to build spatial reasoning in public schools.
• In Texas Spatial Reason has been removed in the math TEKS as a major area of study in elementary schools, personal finance was added. Will this increase the gender gap? Instead of talking about generalities in education reform, we need to address this major problem.

In the past we supported the participants in the Expanding Your Horizons Conference to continue learning beyond this powerful day of hands-on presentations by professionals in the field.  The focus ideas from the first meeting produced our helping hand.