Taylor Shipp, who is entering 9th grade, adjusts his team’s gravity car before the students see how far it can go in this August file photo
Violeta Garcia is a STEM researcher and consultant, who works to make STEM more accessible. This Saturday, she will be the keynote speaker for the 25th annual Expanding Your Horizons science and math conference for teenage girls.
“One of the things I try to focus on is looking at the entire system that a student is part of,” said Garcia, noting that it takes educators, parents and community members to offer more activities for students to develop an interest in STEM. “... Essentially, we are creating a new ecosystem that they are part of already, but really we’re adding STEM to it as a community.”
Garcia owns and is a consultant at the company STEM Learning by Design, which develops STEM programs for different organizations, focusing on students who are underrepresented in STEM fields. She was also a principal consultant at the Colorado Department of Education and initiated the development of Colorado’s vision for STEM education.
The American Association of University Women collaborated with Centralia College to host the Expanding Your Horizons workshops for girls who are 12-15 years old. While the deadline to sign up for those workshops has passed, the 9:45 a.m. lecture is free and still open. Garcia noted that this is the age women tend to lost interest in STEM activities.
“By the time they get to middle school, they may have already developed that identity of ‘I don’t belong in that field,’” Garcia said. “... If we let our girls give up too early, then that becomes an acceptance and they don’t try.”
In a free session on Saturday morning, Garcia will speak about the lack of equal representation of women in STEM fields, understanding how language and actions discourage children and students from pursuing STEM careers or developing STEM skills and how parents, teachers and community members can encourage exposure to STEM knowledge.
“Their performance is about the same as boys’,” Garcia said. “They have the aptitude, it’s the interest (that is the problem). So if we offer classes that are more about robotics or makerspaces, girls choose not to (take them).”
Garcia said parents should consider the toys they give their children, and that offering them toys with problem-solving skills is critical.
“When we get to middle school, girls’ interest in STEM from ages 11-15 really drops,” Garcia said. “We don’t want to get to the drop off point. We want to encourage that identity and the toys we expose our kids to are critical.”
The American Association of University Women and Centralia College will host 22 different Expanding Your Horizons workshops on Saturday, Oct. 20 for girls who are 12-15 years old and interested in STEM careers.
Garcia’s lecture takes place at 9:45 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 20 in Washington Hall room 121 at Centralia College. To RSVP for the lecture, call 360-623-8969.
