The Miami Museum of Science, in collaboration with Miami-Dade County Public Schools Urban Systemic Initiative (USI), and SECME. Inc. (formerly Southeaster Consortia for Minority Engineers) will carry out implementation and development project that will leverage existing networks and resources to ensure wide scale expansion of Girls RISE (Raising Interest in Science and Engineering). Girls RISE is an NSF PWG model project designed by the Museum to increase middle school girls' self-esteem and confidence in leering mathematics and science, thus reducing the attrition in advance level mathematics and science coursework that occurs as girls move from middle school to high school.
The new collaborative project, entitled SECME RISE, will expand the Girls RISE model in Miami-Dade County Public Schools, the fourth largest school district in the country with 345,000= students. Through integrated program strategies including career exploration seminars, technology workshops, an engineering design studio, peer leadership training, a lead teacher institute, parent involvement activities and technology access through the local public library network, SECME RISE will work to achieve a systemic approach in Miami-Dade Public schools that will enhance the access of girls (with an emphasis on girls of color) to improved science, mathematics and technology education and exposure to engineering-related careers. Broad program dissemination will be achieved through the national SECME, Inc. Teacher Summer institute (15 states, 100 school systems), utilization of existing science, engineering and mathematics networks, outreach opportunities, print and electronic media, and the SECME RISE web site, as well as through contributions to the field through documentation of the program's impact on girls' achievements in mathematics and science.
Through this collaboration, SECME RISE will seek to increase the access of girls to those courses in which they have been traditionally underrepresented as well at to effect permanent change by:
1) Expanding the SMT infrastructure trough a new partnership between science museums, public schools, universities and the private sector;
2) Creating extracurricular and informal science learning opportunities that provide new vehicles for maintaining girl's interest in science and mathematics through the transitional years (middle to high)
3) Effecting classroom pedagogy by increasing teacher awareness of the benefits of gender-fair education for both males and females;
4) Increasing parental awareness and eliciting parental support for their daughter' SMT education and related career aspirations;
5) Contributing to the research base on how socio-economic status and ethnicity interact with gender to influence mathematics and science learning; and
6) Documenting the impact of informal instruction (before and after school, Saturday and summer programming) on maintaining girl's interest and achievement in mathematics and science.
