As of April 2008, I have been working for the National Girls Collaborative Project (NGCP). NGCP is a National Science Foundation funded grant that brings together organizations committed to informing girls and encouraging them to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and math - or STEM (catchy acronym, huh?). We do so by sharing resources, providing networking opportunities, and supporting existing programs. Right now, we have ten Regional Collaboratives (from the Northwest, to Texas, to Florida, all the way up to Maine) that have been busy planning Kick-Off events and Forums, promoting STEM, and helping distribute NGCP mini-grants - small seed grants of $1,000 for collaborating organizations planning events like STEM summer camps and Expanding Your Horizons events. It has been incredible to talk with many of the Regional Collaborative leads and hear their enthusiasm for encouraging girls in STEM. I also love hearing about all of our successful mini-grants and seeing photos of the girls having a blast conducting science experiments, building robots, or designing computer games.
One exciting part of my job is promoting NGCP on the Web in a variety of ways. NGCP has a Facebook group, for instance, where we advertise events and resources available for STEM programs as well as individuals. The group now has over 150 members and we have a number of members who actively post relevant STEM information on the group wall. Another very cool part of my job is helping out with our monthly webcasts. We select presenters in STEM-related fields to talk about their programs and successes. Webcast participants log in online to view the live webcast while listening to the presentation over the phone.
Some other Web 2.0 projects in the works are an NGCP blog, Wikipedia page, and an NGCP Island in Second Life. I am learning that a lot of organizations and school programs are starved for resources, so it is a good feeling to provide them with free, valuable resources for helping girls pursue STEM. The opportunities for STEM programs to network through such Web mediums seems endless.
If you are on Facebook, join the NGCP group!
I think that Boston needs a NGCP branch if there isn't one already here. So come start one. If there is, come work here. So we can go get drinks. And rhomp about New England.
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