If you’ve got young daughters, you should be watching this:
Beginning April 25, the PBS NEWSHOUR will present a three-part series examining the challenges facing women who study and work in the science and engineering fields.
“We get very few young women going into computer science and physics and areas of engineering. And we even know the reason why it’s the case,” Harvey Mudd College President Maria Klawe told the Newshour’s Judy Woodruff. “It’s because number one, they think it’s not interesting, and number two, they think they wouldn’t be good at it. And number three, they have the image of the people in those fields that they don’t think is attractive.”
On Wednesday, a story on the NewsHour website will look at why more women choose careers in the life sciences over engineering and the physical sciences and efforts to draw women into these fields.
On Thursday, the NewsHour’s evening broadcast (check local listings) will feature Judy Woodruff’s interview with Klawe on why so few girls study science and engineering and how Harvey Mudd College was able to turn that around.
And on Friday, Klawe, 2011 Google Science Fair winner Shree Bose and other women in science will participate in a live chat on women and science during which visitors to the NewsHour website will have a chance to ask them questions and weigh in.
“What gets created in technology today depends on who is doing the creation,” Klawe told Woodruff. “If you completely shut out the entire feminine perspective on the world, you’re gonna have a different set of products.”
