This dissemination project will provide access to materials developed by Rural and Urban Images: Voices of Girls in Science and Technology (Voices) throughout the state of West Virginia, regionally, and nationally. Voices is a research and development program that examines factors affecting rural girls' participation in science, mathematics, and technology (SMT) and enhances their SMT participation. Voices' partners include: the Appalachia Educational Laboratory; the Eisenhower Regional Consortium for Mathematics and Science Education, which will provide an audience and venue for training; the Appalachian Rural Systemic Initiative (ARSI), which will disseminate materials and provide training; the Black Diamond Girl Scout Council, which will train its trainers with the materials and establish a badge for girls who use them; and the Educational Resources Information Clearinghouse/Center for Rural Education and Small Schools (ERIC/CRESS), which will produce with the Voices staff a monograph on gender, curriculum and family involvement issues. ERIC/CRESS will also promote Voices materials in its newsletters and add them to its catalog. Sustainability is a feature of this project. Girl Scout leaders will continue training others and using the Voices materials with girls for years. Similarly, materials marketed by ERIC/CRESS will have a ripple effect, reaching broader and broader populations.
