"What motivated you to start Sally Ride Science?"
"Over the many years since my flight, it became clear to me there are a lot of kids, including girls, who are curious about science, about the world, about life on Mars, about how to design a roller coaster. But they lose that, partly because our system doesn't put a lot of emphasis on science and math.
It's not cool to be a scientist or engineer. These kids want to do things that are cool - like be a pro basketball player, an actor, a singer, a playwright. Things that out culture puts in front of them in papers and on TV all the time. When they're relatively young, they think science is cool and interesting, but they lose that in socializing. That was the motivation for Sally Ride Science."
So, what does Sally Ride Science do?
"We try to create programs that continue to engage students as they go through middle school - to show that science is just as interesting as it was when they were in elementary school. That science offers great career opportunities and you can go through life doing something you love.
As we looked around, we didn't think there were other companies creating compelling education content that kept tweens engaged. So we came up with after-school and supplemental materials. Our TOYchallenge contest encapsulates our philosophy that science is fun. Whether you're building a toy or a bridge, you employ the same principles. The TOYchallenge is engineering in disguise."
Why are girls historically less likely to pursue science and engineering?
"I think a lot of it is the way our society has developed science and engineering and who does it. The world and our perceptions have changed a lot, even since the '70s, but there are lingering stereotypes. If you ask an 11-year-old to draw a scientist, she's likely to draw a geeky guy with a pocket protector. That's just not an image an 11-year-old girl aspires to. As she looks on the Web, she sees men as scientists. That's not particularly appealing to tween girls. And if an 11-year-old girl says she wants to be an engineer, she'll likely get a different reaction from peers than she would if a boy her age said the same thing, and maybe even different reactions from teachers and parents."
"So you put a female face on science?"
"That's a good way to say it. We put a female face on math and science. We target both boys and girls, but we emphasize girls. We try to introduce them to female role models. Make the girls appreciate you can be a scientist and a normal person."
"Discuss the intersection of science education and its intersection with innovation - does one beget the other?"
"They absolutely go together. Basic science research, basic engineering are what lead to some of the innovations that propel the country. Look around, there's a computor on every desk, everyone has a cell phone. iPods have taken over. That's just the consumer-electronics market. These things are part of out lives. We can't imagine a world without them anymore. Some of our largest, most productive companies wouldn't exist without a science engineering base: HP, Apple, Microsoft, Dell, the list is endless. This stuff is all around them. It's in their pink Nanos. It's in IM (instant messaging). It's in their cell phones that can take pictures."
"What's at stake should the nation lose its scientific standing?"
"We've always thought of ourselves as an innovative country that keeps at the forefront, a world leader for the last many decades. We've always prided ourselves on innovation. In World War II, the Cold War, the race to the moon - our self-image is being a technologically superior country. Without the new generation having some background or ability to enter engineering or science, we risk losing that. It's part of our identity. We're pioneers. We're innovators. And we're not producing engineers and scientists in the numbers we need."
"You sound serious about making science fun. But we were curious: What was your reaction to Micheal Griffin's comment this year that global warming wasn't something we need to wrestle with?"
"Wasn't that unbelievable? That was incredible. But the jury is in. It was in before the most recent 2006 report on global climate change. All the top scientists are able to agree. We can see the (negative) impacts. For the NASA administrator to say this is not something we should be concerned about sends a wrong signal to people. Kids are ahead of adults on this issue. They're very well-informed and are very interested in it. They're the ones that will take the lead."
"How so?"
"I think science and innovation will have a huge role to play in this. This could be the issue that galvanizes young scientists and engineers across the world. It's a problem that's not intractable yet, but there's no silver bullet. You're going to see a burgeoning of entrepreneurial companies with engineering solutions that will each attack separate parts of this very large problem. Conservation can help, but the solutions to this are going to lie in advances in technology."
"What are some of the new things we can expect to see from Sally Ride Science?"
"We're excited about our innovating classroom sets of supplemental materials. Our next ones on climate change and astronomy are very engaging. We're also just finishing a movie based on the TOYchallenge competition. It's a documentary done by a friend of mine. It's done like, "Spellbound," the documentary on a spelling bee. She followed six teams throughout the arc of the design and innovation process. We're submitting the film to film festivals this summer. We hope to have that out in theaters in a year and a half or so. It's all about trying to get science more integrated into the popular culture."
Source: BACK TO SCHOOL: The Sally Ride Interview by Mike Drummond
"Over the many years since my flight, it became clear to me there are a lot of kids, including girls, who are curious about science, about the world, about life on Mars, about how to design a roller coaster. But they lose that, partly because our system doesn't put a lot of emphasis on science and math.
It's not cool to be a scientist or engineer. These kids want to do things that are cool - like be a pro basketball player, an actor, a singer, a playwright. Things that out culture puts in front of them in papers and on TV all the time. When they're relatively young, they think science is cool and interesting, but they lose that in socializing. That was the motivation for Sally Ride Science."
So, what does Sally Ride Science do?
"We try to create programs that continue to engage students as they go through middle school - to show that science is just as interesting as it was when they were in elementary school. That science offers great career opportunities and you can go through life doing something you love.
As we looked around, we didn't think there were other companies creating compelling education content that kept tweens engaged. So we came up with after-school and supplemental materials. Our TOYchallenge contest encapsulates our philosophy that science is fun. Whether you're building a toy or a bridge, you employ the same principles. The TOYchallenge is engineering in disguise."
Why are girls historically less likely to pursue science and engineering?
"I think a lot of it is the way our society has developed science and engineering and who does it. The world and our perceptions have changed a lot, even since the '70s, but there are lingering stereotypes. If you ask an 11-year-old to draw a scientist, she's likely to draw a geeky guy with a pocket protector. That's just not an image an 11-year-old girl aspires to. As she looks on the Web, she sees men as scientists. That's not particularly appealing to tween girls. And if an 11-year-old girl says she wants to be an engineer, she'll likely get a different reaction from peers than she would if a boy her age said the same thing, and maybe even different reactions from teachers and parents."
"So you put a female face on science?"
"That's a good way to say it. We put a female face on math and science. We target both boys and girls, but we emphasize girls. We try to introduce them to female role models. Make the girls appreciate you can be a scientist and a normal person."
"Discuss the intersection of science education and its intersection with innovation - does one beget the other?"
"They absolutely go together. Basic science research, basic engineering are what lead to some of the innovations that propel the country. Look around, there's a computor on every desk, everyone has a cell phone. iPods have taken over. That's just the consumer-electronics market. These things are part of out lives. We can't imagine a world without them anymore. Some of our largest, most productive companies wouldn't exist without a science engineering base: HP, Apple, Microsoft, Dell, the list is endless. This stuff is all around them. It's in their pink Nanos. It's in IM (instant messaging). It's in their cell phones that can take pictures."
"What's at stake should the nation lose its scientific standing?"
"We've always thought of ourselves as an innovative country that keeps at the forefront, a world leader for the last many decades. We've always prided ourselves on innovation. In World War II, the Cold War, the race to the moon - our self-image is being a technologically superior country. Without the new generation having some background or ability to enter engineering or science, we risk losing that. It's part of our identity. We're pioneers. We're innovators. And we're not producing engineers and scientists in the numbers we need."
"You sound serious about making science fun. But we were curious: What was your reaction to Micheal Griffin's comment this year that global warming wasn't something we need to wrestle with?"
"Wasn't that unbelievable? That was incredible. But the jury is in. It was in before the most recent 2006 report on global climate change. All the top scientists are able to agree. We can see the (negative) impacts. For the NASA administrator to say this is not something we should be concerned about sends a wrong signal to people. Kids are ahead of adults on this issue. They're very well-informed and are very interested in it. They're the ones that will take the lead."
"How so?"
"I think science and innovation will have a huge role to play in this. This could be the issue that galvanizes young scientists and engineers across the world. It's a problem that's not intractable yet, but there's no silver bullet. You're going to see a burgeoning of entrepreneurial companies with engineering solutions that will each attack separate parts of this very large problem. Conservation can help, but the solutions to this are going to lie in advances in technology."
"What are some of the new things we can expect to see from Sally Ride Science?"
"We're excited about our innovating classroom sets of supplemental materials. Our next ones on climate change and astronomy are very engaging. We're also just finishing a movie based on the TOYchallenge competition. It's a documentary done by a friend of mine. It's done like, "Spellbound," the documentary on a spelling bee. She followed six teams throughout the arc of the design and innovation process. We're submitting the film to film festivals this summer. We hope to have that out in theaters in a year and a half or so. It's all about trying to get science more integrated into the popular culture."
Source: BACK TO SCHOOL: The Sally Ride Interview by Mike Drummond