At the 2011 National Science Teacher Association (NSTA) conference, Museum staff presented a session entitled Building Skills for Raising Girls’ Interest in Science and Engineering.  The presentation focused on the Museum’s GirlsRISE program, which is in partnership with the Association of Science and Technology Centers (ASTC) and the Southeastern Consortium for Minorities in Engineering (SECME, Inc.). We talked about how we, as informal educators, can engage and motivate girls in science and engineering, and how our nationwide network of museums can work together to broaden these impacts.

 During the trip, we took advantage of some time to visit with staff from one of our GirlsRISE partner museums, the California Academy of Sciences, where we saw this working, glass-walled science lab completely visible to the public. It was great to see that everyone could be a part of the science happening there. That’s what we all want to do – have everyone feel like they can be a part of science!