GSE/DIS POWERFUL SIGNALS: Transforming the Role of Women and Girls in Science and Engineering

Wamc Northeast Public Radio, Albany NY

Investigators

Abstract

WAMC/Northeast Public Radio is producing two radio series to be broadcast throughout the US on WAMC's nationally syndicated radio programs 51%--about and affecting women, and The Best of Our Knowledge.a show about education, educational policy, innovation, and research. The first series is nine sound-rich, feature-length, magazine style radio modules covering innovative gender equity programs and projects throughout the nation, highlighting successful methods and strategies for increasing the participation of girls and young women in STEM education and careers. The second series is three multi-segment "audio-diary" radio stories which will allow individual young women who have chosen a course of study in a STEM field or career, or are currently working in such a field, to tell her own story. Both will also be available for listening on the Internet (WAMC's Women in STEM website) and distributed nationally to targeted audiences on compact disc. The intellectual merit of this project lies in WAMC's radio programming placing a national spotlight on specific teaching styles, curriculum designs, pedagogical approaches, and studies that have contributed to the knowledge base addressing gender-related differences in learning, and have promoted educational experiences that positively affect student interest, performance, and choice of careers; and how these programs and projects have made a measurable impact on the national effort to increase the participation of girls and young women in STEM. As a "storyteller," WAMC anticipates the following broader impacts associated with this project: * Reaching and educating a nationwide audience of radio listeners about the nationwide effort to close the gender gap in STEM education and careers; * Reaching and educating a targeted audience of girls and young women (with a priority emphasis on minority and disabled populations) who will have the opportunity to learn that STEM education and careers are possible and within reach; * Reaching and educating a targeted audience of parents, educators, academics, institutional and organizational leaders providing them with stories about model programs and stories they can use to further their efforts to increase the participation of girls and young women in STEM.