CuSTEMized: Inspiring girls in STEM through themselves
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BEYOND THE LAB
CuSTEMized: Inspiring girls in STEM through themselves www.cuSTEMized.org By Humaira Taz
W
hen Jean Fan volunteered at an afterschool program for second graders, one of the most common phrases she heard was, “But Miss Jean, I am not a math person!” Reflecting on this in her TED talk, Jean said, “Hmm, you are in second grade, and you have not even gotten to the cool math stuff like stochastic processes or Bayesian hierarchical models. How do you know you’re not ‘a math person’?” That is when it dawned on her that maybe if she showed the girls examples of other women who were scientists, or give them a personalized message to boost their confidence toward math and science, they could envision themselves in the same path. Thus, the nonprofit organization CuSTEMized was born. “Women remain underrepresented in STEM [science, technology, engineering, and mathematics] fields,” said Jean. “I experienced this personally as the only female PhD student in my program at Harvard University,” where she
is currently working toward her doctoral degree in bioinformatics and integrative genomics. Her role model has been her mother—now a professor of geosciences. Underrepresentation of women in STEM fields remains a common issue. While certain areas of STEM, such as biology and chemistry, see more participation from women, other areas such as physics, mathematics, and engineering suffer from a shortage of women. Jean thought, what if girls could see themselves in, not one, but multiple scientific careers in the future? That is the core of CuSTEMized. The books by CuSTEMized introduce children to important scientific concepts, diverse STEM fields, and to actual women in different STEM fields. The organization features two main lines of books: My Little Book of Big Dreams and My Scientific Name. The most special aspect of both books is that the child is the main character. In My Little Book of Big Dreams, the
parents can personalize the main character using their child’s name and appearance. The book then portrays the child in many difference scientific careers. Parents have had exciting reactions from their children after presenting them with this book. One parent said, “Zoey is smitten with her book. She is so proud of the book and has been showing everyone who comes to our house. She is quite taken with the idea of being a meteorologist or an engineer now. This has been such a wonderful experience, and I am certain that Zoey is going to treasure this book long past childhood.” Another parent was rewarded with the most precious look on the face of her daughter when she realized that the book was about her! When I browsed My Scientific Name, I was curious to see what STEM careers would show up for the letters of my name. Each letter represents a scientific career in the book. The e-book is free to download,
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