Intellectual Merit: This project will develop and host Science: It's a Girl Thing: A Web-Based Diffusion Initiative for Parents and Parent Influencers. This initiative will foster awareness of the serious underrepresentation of girls in STEM degrees and careers; enable parents and parent influencers to understand the need for scientific thought and study for their daughters and other girls; and provide strategies to do science at home, utilize science-rich resources in the community; and advocate for gender equitable inquiry-based science in school. Objectives will include synthesizing and adapting existing information on girls and science for widespread distribution through the web and national parent organizations; bringing content about girls and science to parents, who have the greatest impact on girls; and advocating for gender equitable science in school. The vehicle for bringing the Science: It's a Girl Thing message to the widest possible audience is based on Playtime is Science, EEC's research-based, award-winning program for students in grades K-3.
The Science: It's a Girl Thing campaign is grounded in research that parents play an important role in how girls think about themselves in terms of science and science careers. Research indicates that parent involvement is key to encouraging girls to try science. Research also indicates that parents may unwittingly convey negative information to their daughters about science, fostering stereotypes that only boys like science. Science: It's a Girl Thing is grounded in the idea that science IS a girl thing, and that positive, parent involvement is vital to encouraging girls to pursue science studies and careers.
The campaign will be built around a series of web-based and interactive strategies targeted to parents and parent influencers. Playtime is Science materials will be synthesized for the Science: It's a Girl Thing campaign; bringing this content directly to websites used by the target population; and creating a Science: It's a Girl Thing social networking site. EEC/AED will be supported in this initiative by Z2 Consulting, a marketing firm specializing in development, implementation, and evaluation of web-based strategies.
Broader Impacts: The thrust of Science: It's a Girl Thing is to reach parents and parent influencers where they are and push content about girls and STEM out to them. The proposed campaign will identify the most high-trafficked online locations of our targeted audiences and suffuse them with content about parents' strategic role in fostering STEM education for their daughters. The project will use wide-reaching, cutting edge technology for diffusion: online parenting sites, such as iVillage, Mommytalk, and parents.com; social networking sites such as Facebook and YouTube and NING; parent influencer sites such as Edutopia, and Education Week and Teacher Magazine; and national organizations such as the National Coalition for Parent Involvement.
