Girl Scouts determined to make their mark on the Lego League
While Lego is trying to lure girls into the action with Lego Friends, the Girl Scouts see no reason girls can’t compete with the real thing, and maybe even spark a lifelong interest in robotics and engineering while they’re at it.
Maria Wynne, Girls Scouts CEO, sees a lost opportunity [when girls don’t compete]. A study by the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce predicts that 2.8 million STEM jobs will be open in 2018, and Wynne says it will be difficult to fill those jobs without women educated in STEM fields.
“That situation’s not going to change unless something radical happens in the way we are preparing our youth, particularly the girls who have so much talent and who are so easily dissuaded from being part of the science, technology, engineering and math disciplines because of gender bias at an early age,” Wynne said.
To address the situation, the Girl Scouts of Greater Chicago and Northwest Indiana decided to host a First Lego League tournament, a robotics competition for kids ages nine to sixteen, hoping to send a strong message that girls can and should compete. Half the teams at the tournament were comprised of girls, a bump from the smaller numbers normally seen not only at similar tournaments but in fields like computer science as well. As one dad, Pat Troy, whose daughter finally got a crack at the competition after years of watching her brother being coached said:
“Boys are more likely to be into playing the computer games and getting into technology that way,” he said. “Most of the girls in high school are more interested in the social aspects of it, and once they understand that there are lots of social aspects to (science and technology), then it becomes much more interesting.”
Though the social aspect at first glance can seem like just another stereotype being applied, his daughter, Hannah, agrees on one very important level: a winning team requires teamwork, and that’s all about being social.
Full story at Herald News via The Mary Sue.
Photo credit: Fotolia
