Woman Power at Work

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Objectives of the Initiative

Short term objectives:

1. Engage girls in sciences and scientific enquiry.
2. Influence the choices made by girls as they are about to start high school
3. Improve self confidence of the girls in their ability to study science
4. Involve ministry and high tech industry in discourse on gender gap in education, and enlist them to contribute funds and/or professional help, and supply role models.

Long term objective:
Decrease the significant gender gaps in the participation in science studies in Israeli high schools.

Which barriers in the career stages of females does the initiative address?

The initiative aims to expose socialisation that includes the sex typing of professions, that is so influential in the decisions of teenagers, and counter balance it.

The initiative also addresses the lack of role models in science and technology, and the lack of information about science among young girls.

The initiative aims at compensating girls for lack of hands on experience in science, and for the detrimental effect of co educational settings on many girls.

Demonstrable success of the initiative

Short term objectives:

• Increase in numbers: from 25 girls participating in 2006 to over 130 in 2010.
• Reports of participants that they are delighted by the project.
• Readiness of girls to become involved after their yearly project as instructors in the museum, i.e. continue their involvement with science
• Engagement of partners on an ongoing basis: Intel company that sends female engineers to mentor the girls, the ministry of education, and its division for ensuring equal opportunities for boys and girls that supports the project and supplies the training for empowerment of the girls, and promotes its dissemination in more schools.
• Prominent female scientists and academics figures that associate themselves with the project, for example by sitting on a panel of women scientists at a special conference of the participants in the project held in March 2010.

Motives for launching initiative

The Israel National Museum of Science, Technology & Space – Daniel & Matilde Recanati Center, Israel’s premier institution of informal science education, is dedicated to preserving, perpetuating, popularizing and promoting, the rich cultural heritage of science, enhancing science literacy among Israelis of all ages.

Most particularly, it fosters a love of science among Israeli children and youth, from all backgrounds and geographic locations, and cultivates excellence among them. It targets certain groups that for cultural reasons are less likely to reach the museum and its activities, and be exposed to scientific knowledge and activities. One of these groups is females, hence it addresses the significant gender gaps in the science achievements of Israeli students.

Equal opportunity measures in the organisation before the initiative

Target group(s) of the initiative

Middle School girls with high grades in sciences

Implementation of the initiative

Special programme in medicine, robotics, astrophysics and space exploration for 9th grade girls from the Haifa area and beyond.
The girls, chosen on basis of their proven abilities in science, participate in 20 weekly workshops and two intensive study days. The workshops are held in the well equipped laboratories of the museum.

The Ministry of Education, and its division for equal opportunities for boys and girls, organizes Sessions on women's empowerment and life choices.

The high tech company Intel contributes to the project, engages its female engineers employees in the project, who meet the girls.
The Technion, Israel's Institute of Technology and Science offers academic support through its faculties and staff, and female scientists meet the girls.

Girls are offered the opportunity to work as young instructors in the science museum on the completion of the course, in order to strengthen and maintain their involvement with science.

Factors of success

Cooperation: the support granted to the science museum by the ministry of education,academia: the Technion, and a high tech industry:Intel.

Resources: the venue of the prestigious museum and its facilities.
Single sex special programme: a safe and empowering setting for the young girls,to explore and experiment with science, and issues of sex roles.

Reward: immediate: instructing children visiting the science museum.

Obstacles, barriers to implementation

Lessons Learned

Cooperation between the governmental sector: ministry of education, and the national science museum on the one hand, and the business sector on the other, Intel in this case, ensures quality training, setting, equipment, personnel from the government, and finances and significant female role models from Intel. The cooperation enables the involvement of prominent female figures in the scientific sphere on a regular basis and at special events.

Benefit for the organisation

Part of the general educational mission of the museum is to bring underrepresented populations to become engaged in scientific learning activities, and increase the number of pupils who study science in high school from these populations.

Sustainability of the initiative

The project is part of the drive of the science museum to diversify the population participating in its activities, and is one of several projects targeting underrepresented and underachieving populations, including new immigrants to Israel from Ethiopia and from former USSR, Arab youths, and children living in the periphery. All these activities are presented as fulfilling the mission to which the museum is committed.

Transferability

Science museums usually have various programmes for youths, and this can be one of them in any context. The main requirement is awareness of the gender gap in science classes, and commitment equal opportunities, and to diversifying the population of children engaging in science in schools and at the museum.

Systematic Approach

The project is embedded in the wider strategy of increasing the number of children in science from underrepresented and underachieving groups.

Innovation

There are other educational programmes that expose young girls to science, but the uniqueness here is the use of the facilities and expertise of the science museum, and later the continued retention of the graduates of this specific group, female 9th graders, in the scientific environment by recruiting them to serve as trainee guides.

Monitoring / Evaluation

Summary: This initiative is good practice because...

This initiative is a good practice because it combines a science friendly environment with girl friendly practices.

The single sex activities deal both with science and with social constraints, The exposure to hands on experiences in science in an all girl environment increases the girls' readiness to experiment, ask questions, and succeed.

The sessions, in which awareness is raised to socialization, help support girls who want to make a choice that contradicts messages they receive from their surroundings.

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