girls.

I've been thinking about writing this post for a very long time. I'm still not completely sure I know what I want to say, but I feel it's time for me to at least say something.

The idea for this post started a few months ago, when this article popped up in my twitter feed and I was - for lack of better word - disgusted. buzzfeed: Famous Berkeley Astronomer Violated Sexual Harassment Policies Over Many Years 

It's not the first time I’ve felt that way after reading an article about the way females in STEM are victimized. Within the last year, there was a science "advice" column written by established female scientist who basically told a female student to just deal with unwanted advances from men she was working with and a Nobel laureate's awful comments about “the trouble with girls” during a luncheon... and I could go on, but I won’t.

My only comment at the time was: One day I'll encourage my female students to pursue science careers without any hesitation/worry. I'm not there yet. This thought was limited to 140 characters because I posted it on twitter, but immediately, I started collecting data to see what impact I've already had and what I could do to make an impact in the future. As most of you reading probably know, I teach high school astronomy. It's a science elective and an honors course, so I have a pretty good idea that the students coming in want to be there because it's not required. I do know that my class has gained a reputation for being fun, which to be honest I'm ok with – science should be fun. It’s also gained a reputation for being easy, which comes from the fact that I still do lots of hands on activities, and the students consider it easy because they grasp the concepts quickly, which I'm also ok with – learning shouldn’t be hard.

Here's what I learned by logging in to my archived grade book for the past five school years and counting how many girls I've had in each of my astronomy classes. (My school of over 3000 students is 48% female this year, for comparison.)

2011: 96 students. 51% female

2012: 76 students. 34% female

2013: 71 students. 45% female

2014: 196 students. 36% female

2015: 163 students. 48% female

I started thinking about other classes, and though I admittedly didn't collect data from every class, I did reach out specifically to the teacher who teaches AP (Advanced Placement) computer science and AP physics. In 2014, she had 25 students in the one section of AP computer science that was offered. Two of them were female. Yes, 2. 8%. This year, she has 32 students in AP computer science. Seven of them are female, 19%. The teacher that gave me this data also teaches some of our AP physics students - she has 35 now and 9 are female (26%). After a few chats with students, I also know very few female students are in our AP calculus class. There's so much more data I could dive into and I’m relatively sure I know what I'll find. Girls just aren't in most of the higher level science classes offered.

I think I’ve started to move things in the right direction at my school. Four years ago, I began coaching the all female robotics team. I started because a few girls I knew and a bunch I didn’t know came to my classroom afterschool one day upset the boys on the co-ed team put them on inventory and quality control… so we started our own team. We made it to states twice and always have one of the biggest teams at our meets. Being in an environment every Thursday after school where girls are solving problems, building a robot, programming, and most importantly having fun makes me so happy. Quite a few of our team alumni have gone on to college for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) degrees (at awesome schools like MIT, Vassar, Georgia Tech, Wesleyan, and UCF) and a bunch of the girls graduating this year have big plans, too. I’ve also sponsored the GEMS (Girls in Engineering, Math, and Science) club for the past five years. We hang out once or twice a month, usually with guest speakers who are women in STEM. The women who come to visit us are always very open about the challenges they’ve faced throughout their careers. Though a few have had situations arise because of their gender, most of them have still encouraged my students to pursue a STEM career. This year, we spent an entire meeting talking about the problems facing women in STEM and realized that we have problems in our own school. The solution the students came up with? Make flyers about what math and science classes are available to everyone, and hang them everywhere. Also, the girls plan to go talk to the guidance counselors about how we can make sure female students know what classes are available to them when they’re scheduling for next year. I think it’s a step in the right direction. I’m confident we’ll take more.

So that brings me to right now. Sunday, at Barnes and Noble, I bought two books. One because I love the author (Annie Jacobsen) and the other was one I knew I needed the second I picked it up. "The Only Woman in the Room - WhyScience is Still a Boys' Club" by Eileen Pollack is probably a book everyone should read.  Her ideas on why women don't pursue STEM careers are personal – she graduated from Yale with a degree in Physics, and then became a writer. There's one chart near the end that nearly broke my heart, and it's a great book of anecdotes and interviews from a writer with a science background. Though the numbers vary by discipline (life sciences are better) physics, astronomy, computer science, and most types of engineering are still dominated by mostly (white) males. There are many reasons why this divide occurs, some of which I've seen firsthand in my classroom and at my school, and I'm not going to pretend that I can sum it up in a blog post when it took her 15 chapters. But, if you've never personally thought about the bias toward women in STEM or about the differences between the experiences of female and male students in school, I highly encourage you to read it. While reading, sometimes I felt angry, sometimes sad, but I didn't feel particularly enlightened overall. Probably because I feel I'm already on the front lines and fighting for girls every day. I did take away some things I need to do better in my classroom that I hope will encourage girls more to see their potential and not wait for anyone else to tell them they've got potential. I’m also completely aware that gender isn’t the only problem facing people who are pursuing STEM careers, but I’m sure if we begin to work toward equality for one underrepresented group, our solutions may begin to help everyone who isn’t a straight white male.  

Just like after the first incident that triggered me to start collecting data to help me write this post, I felt as if I needed to do something, anything, to start to make it better. I started to organize recruitment packets for local middle school guidance counselors to distribute to students who may want to participate in our STEM magnet program next year. It was a small step, but still one I think will have an impact. 

Because these ideas have been bouncing around in my head for awhile, and I've had a sheet of paper lying on my desk the entire time, so I've been randomly scribbling down thoughts along the way. One of my scribbles was "Jo - Little Women" because right after I started thinking about this, I watched our theater department’s production of Little Women the musical. Jo March, the lead character (played in the production I saw by a wonderful young lady who also happens to be an astronomy student in my 2nd period) is an amazing role model for any girl. Though the show is filled with strong female characters, Jo is definitely my favorite. She doesn't care about what other people expect from her, she doesn't care about what is considered proper and right, she chases big dreams and never lets them go. Though there are some pieces of a love story throughout the show, Jo doesn't put the men in her life first. She comes first. Her dreams of being a writer come first. 

lyrics from "Astonishing" 

Little Women: The Broadway Musical

I only know I'm meant for something more

I've got to know if I can be

Astonishing

There's a life

That I am meant to lead

A life like nothing I have known

I can feel it

And it's far from here

I've got to find it on my own

Even now I feel its heat upon my skin.

A life of passion that pulls me from within,

A life that I am making to begin.

There must be somewhere I can be

Astonishing

I'll find my way

I'll find it far away

I'll find it in unexpected and unknown

I'll find my life in my own way

Today

Here I go

And there's no turning back

My great adventure has begun

I may be small

But I've got giant plans

To shine as brightly as the sun

I will blaze until I find my time and place

I will be fearless,

Surrendering modesty and grace

I will not disappear without a trace

I'll shout and start a riot

Be anything but quiet

Christopher Columbus

I'll be astonishing at last

I think that's what I really want my students to know when they leave my class. They can do anything. I already know they can. I hope they know they can. 

But I still have a ton of questions... and I think we all should. If I send my female students off to college for degrees in a STEM field - will they be ready? Will they have the support they need to succeed whether they're ready or not? Will having more women in STEM start to change the culture, just because they're there? Will my students have to deal with unconscious bias and overt sexism? Will they be victims of harassment and assault? What can I do to make sure that every student I teach has the opportunity to pursue the career they want, STEM or not?

I’m so lucky because I already know that my students, male and female, are creative, smart, brave, kind people. I can’t wait for all of you to see how the world changes once they’re out in it making a difference. It’s going to be astonishing. 

MAVEN Educator Ambassador Workshop - NASA Goddard - August 2015

I recently participated in some awesome professional development to become a Mars MAVEN Educator Ambassador. MAVEN is an acronym -of course it is, it's NASA - for  Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN mission, so I'm just going to call it MAVEN from here on out. It's not a rover, it's an orbiter and it doesn't have cameras so it's not quite as high profile as some other Mars missions *cough* Curiosity *cough* but it is really super cool.

The MAVEN Educator Ambassador workshop was a week in Greenbelt, Maryland - the home of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center - with some of the most amazing, inspiring, smart educators I've ever met. There are many times that I think that the best part of teacher workshops is meeting all of the other teachers... and this one was no exception.

Our fun started with a meet and greet at the hotel on Sunday night, then we arrived at Goddard bright and early on Monday morning ready to learn.

Here's our home for the week, building 34

and me, WAY too excited to get started.

After intros, an icebreaker, and meeting our amazing facilitators from the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at University of Colorado, Boulder -  it was time to really dive in.

We listened to a lecture from one of the MAVEN magnetometer scientists, Jared Espley. He talked to us about geology on Mars and in the past - it went from wet and kinda nice to dry and pretty gross. He also talked to us about space plasma physics - "Studying space plasma physics is like studying nothing," meaning that even the best vacuum chambers on earth can't get the low number of particles that there actually are in space. He also spent a bunch of time making sure we understood how the magnetic field of Mars and the magnetic field of earth are way different - Mars' global magnetic field is basically non-existent. There are a few weird little magnetic fields in the crust in random places, but it's very not earth. Last, he showed us the data for Mars atmospheric escape (which is what MAVEN is really trying to figure out) and the slide was blank. Which was awesome, because science. One of our facilitators, Claire, said  my favorite thing that day "Sometimes in space science, we only have what's "most right for right now" - and that's ok."

After our lecture we went outside and became a human orrery solar system model - I'm definitely making one for my students this year. Then we had a chance to analyze Kepler data and picked an exoplanet to "crash land" on... then made presentations to the other groups. Our group's was obviously the best. :)

After a super fun day at Goddard, Linda (who I know from way back when we wrote district astronomy curriculum together), Angela (our new friend from Texas) and I decided to take a quick trip into DC for the night to see Albert and Abe. :)

Day 2 started with mapping magnetic fields and playing around with magnets and compasses, which was super fun.

Our team also had to design a spacecraft with a magnetometer based on the data we had collected - the instrument had to be far enough away to not collect data from any electrical components... not an easy task. Yet again, our group clearly had the best spacecraft (solar panels, redundant systems, thermal protection, lightweight) AND definitely the best acronym. :)

After our exciting morning, we were off to the gift shop and a tour of Goddard!
Happy teachers on the way to the gift shop....

#getinlosersweregoingshopping

and a sad wallet post gift shop.


I'm happy to report there is no more pink merchandise in the gift shop... because I bought it all.

One of my favorite things about our tour was that our tour guide was the awesomely awesome Sandra Cauffman, the deputy project manager for MAVEN along with a million other cool NASA missions and projects. She had a great "women in STEM" story too, and definitely overcame lots of obstacles on her way to being the amazing engineer and person she is today.

Sandra telling her story to the MEAs

thermal vacuum chamber for testing spacecraft instruments

group photo with really really REALLY big vacuum chamber

vacuum chamber selfie. 

James Webb Space Telescope mirrors in containers the clean room

super clean clean room because this ENTIRE wall is air filters

thermal protection from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter :) 

coolest signs ever, part 1

coolest signs ever, part 2

coolest signs ever, part 3

Day 3 started off with some Mars/Earth geologic feature comparisons - another really cool activity I want to do with my students. We spent some time as students and played with Mars simulators, which are here, if you'd like to give Mars a makeover too :)  http://lasp.colorado.edu/home/education/K-12/project-spectra/

We played with lasers and diffraction gratings to learn about wavelength, which lead us to a better understanding of the speed of light. (and I can 100% say the speed of light demo that our facilitators Claire and Erin did was the best one EVER) 

After our day of learning, we took a quick trip to the Goddard Visitor Center on our way back to the hotel. Their Solarium is awesome and has Solar Dynamics Observatory data on a huge screen. I loved it. 

That night we decided to head into DC again with some new (and old) friends for dinner and another visit to Albert. :) Did I mention that the MAVEN Educators are the coolest people on the planet? Because they really are. 

Diego, Alison, me, Linda and Phyllis!

Day 4 started with a lecture from Mehdi Benna, another MAVEN scientist who had a TON of data for us... I was admittedly a little overwhelmed, but there were definitely a few things that he said that really stood out for all of us. First, the way MAVEN is studying the atmosphere of Mars is like "watching the last 5 minutes of a movie and trying to figure out from that what happened in the first 5 minutes." The mission is trying to figure out what happened to the atmosphere of Mars over the past 3.5 billion years or so by studying what it looks like and what is happening now. Definitely not an easy task. MAVEN has a lot of work to do, but has 9 instruments to do that work. Here's just one of the graphs he showed us, they all looked this cool/confusing. 

But really, what it boils down to is that MAVEN is just trying to figure out one piece of the Mars puzzle, along with all of the other current and future Mars missions. There's exciting science happening now and even more exciting science to come.

After our lecture we got to play students again (always fun) and make a concept map about something we learned during the week. Each group picked something different, but we picked MAVEN because why not? Note: I'm available to draw crappy Mars robot pictures for you anytime.

Lunch that day was AMAZING because a bunch of scientists came to hang with us and the scientist who picked our table was Paul Mahaffy, who not only worked on the spectrometer that is currently scienceing on MAVEN but also instruments on Curiosity, Pioneer, Galileo and Cassini (my FAVORITE space robot). I totally looked like the heart eyes emoji for the entire lunch hour.

I was lucky enough to meet up for a minute with Jordan, who works at NASA Goddard with distance learning... he was our workshop facilitator for the NASA explorer schools Hubble workshop I went to a few years ago and is super awesome. He's working on a bunch of really cool projects like a communication environment for interns. I wish I had more time to catch up with him but hopefully this wasn't my last time hanging at Goddard.

That afternoon, we got to take an unplanned tour of the Mission Operations Center for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission with Mission Operations Planner Dawn (another awesome lady in STEM at Goddard). We just missed an orbital maneuver, but seeing mission control was really neat. And they let me hold the moon. :)

Our last day was spent planning and presenting our own MAVEN workshops. Each of the teachers is going to present a teacher workshop to spread the MAVEN love even more... it's what NASA likes to call "high impact" but I think it's just awesome. Then it was graduation and picture time which I clearly had fun with all week... but it got even better once they gave us our awesome embroidered polos. Nothing like teacher style :)

we're on the moon. obvi. 

This workshop was by far one of the best ones I've been to and I loved every minute of learning with the amazing educators I met. I plan to stay in touch with lots of them to keep learning in the future... because learning great and learning about space and NASA is the best.

teaching - year 10

The 2015-2016 school year starts tomorrow with a week of pre-planning so we're ready for students on August 24th. The 2015-2016 school year is my 10th year of teaching. I've been saying it all summer, but actually putting it in writing it makes me feel really old.

I'm willing to bet that this year's going to be a crazy one, I've somehow picked up even more responsibilities this year and I'm hoping that maybe one of our new teachers will pick up one or two of my clubs to help with my staying sane. As of right now, I'm National Honor Society sponsor, Girls in Engineering, Math and Science club sponsor, Robotics coach, Astronaut Challenge Coach, (all things I did the past 3 years) and Global Technologies magnet program coordinator (that one's new). It also looks like I've got 5 sections of astronomy with -last time I counted - 133 students total. The classes and numbers are subject to change as I've witnessed and been part of (remember that time a few years ago where my 2nd period switched from one class to another over night? that was fun), but I really hope it sticks. I love teaching astronomy.

Last year was so fun. We participated in astronaut challenge again, skyped with Fred Haise, played with moon rocks, looked ahead to New Horizons, went to Kennedy Space Center, took our first district end of course exam... and the list goes on.

This summer did throw a bit of a curveball at me  - which only a few people know about - and I thought for a minute that I might not go back to the classroom. I had a job offer for a total dream job and though it was a decision a wrestled with for awhile, I decided to stay where I am. (thanks to the few people who I vented to and who helped me and listened to me while I talked through making decision... I appreciate all of you)

Having that almost-not-going-back-to-the-classroom experience made me realize that really excited to teach astronomy this year. With all the New Horizons stuff I really want to incorporate more planetary geology into my class and with all the stuff I learned at my Mars MAVEN workshop at NASA Goddard a few weeks ago, I'm pumped up and excited to go.

One thing I always do at the end of each school year is give my students a survey to see what they thought of the class. I have 4 years of data (3 years of good data) and I use it to help me get ready, make changes, and reflect on what I can do better for the next year. My students last year were some of the coolest humans I've ever met and I respect them a whole lot, so I was really glad that when I read through the surveys most of them enjoyed the class, enjoyed my teaching, and learned something they consider valuable. There were about 160 students who answered survey questions, so there was a bunch more data this year than the last two years. In 2013 I only had 70 responses and in 2014 just 68. Those years I taught physical science too, but last year I had all astronomy.

First the bad news: I talk too fast. I had about 8 or 9 students answer the "what could I do to be a better teacher" question with "SLOW DOWN!!" or something similar. I work on it often, but I just can't. I also had maybe 4 or 5 say something about my "sass" or "sarcasm"... luckily most of the students get it, but I realize I need to watch myself sometimes.

I find that some of the best data comes from students who I know don't really like the class or "click" with me so I actively hunt out their surveys and look for what they said - I know they'll be my harshest critics, and I'm ok with that. I was really surprised that one girl in my 1st period who missed class quite a bit and had disagreements with me often (I was by no means innocent in our disagreements either) commented that she really like our interactive notebooks and it really helped her stay organized. I also had a student who wasn't always with me say "you're a great teacher, I just wasn't always the best student." I hope he remembered writing that and gives some of his future teachers and easier time.

I also ask students for a describe this "class in one word" - which shows they don't always follow directions, because some of them wrote more than one - and these are the results of that, in a wordle.  I like pictures :)

The results of my "which unit was your favorite" and "which unit was your least favorite" were yet again ALL over the place. We do 6 units throughout the year, sky, sun/earth/moon, solar system, light, starts, and the universe. Lots of students told me light was "confusing" and had "too much math" but just as many students said it was their favorite. I guess it's a good thing  that the results are evenly split...it tells me that at least some of the students thought every thing we did was the coolest thing we did. (I'm choosing to look on the bright side of this one.)

Now for the numbers game - which might be my favorite part - I love data.

I'm where I want to be with grades - I think this data (increase from 88.57% to 93.9%) tells me the students know that what they learn is what will determine their grade.

I've got to work on the online part of our class. They don't like moodle, but they like online resources, which is funny because moodle is where all the online resources are. I'm not sure the students are at the point yet where they see the internet as a place to learn things. I have to figure out a way to make that better.

Not enough students are feeling challenged. It's up a bit from before, but definitely not enough.

I'm pretty proud of the "clear about the goals for this class" result (increase from 70% to 92%) because at least I know they know what they're getting into. I'm also glad the "you had high expectations for me" numbers went up again (increase from 45% to 68%) but it's still not good enough.

Most of the numbers I wanted to go up did, and I think that's a good place for me to start the school year... feel free to keep following on twitter if you'd like to come along for the ride.

-d

teaching- year 9

My 9th year of teaching starts Monday, and each year I try to start of by reflecting on what I can do better this year than I did last year. I'm teaching all astronomy -super exciting!-and focusing all of energy on one prep should help me come up with some good lessons. I've been looking at some data on my student surveys from last year and the year before, and here's what I found...

2013-2014 survey results show that out of the students surveyed, only 50% agreed or strongly agreed with the statement: "I felt challenged by this class" (down from 52% the previous year)  I wonder if this data is accurate though, because I think some students equate hard tests with challenging, not just difficult tasks... which they had. The next 2 questions on the survey are interesting to me too, because 20% of the students agree with the statement "we had more work to do in this class than in my other classes" and 49% agreed with "we had more thinking to do in my class than in my other classes" (with neutral answers, these increase to 58% and 79% respectively). The fact that students do not equate work with thinking makes me happy.

Out of the students surveyed, 62%  agreed or strongly agreed with the statement: "I felt like you had high expectations for me." (up from 48% the previous year)

Out of the students surveyed, 49% - agreed or strongly agreed with the statement: "We had more thinking to do in this class than in my other classes." (up from 46% last year)

As far as classroom management stuff, I think I'm going to try a few new things, but it went well. 84% agreed or strongly agreed "the grades I received reflected the quality of my work" and 90% agreed or strongly agreed "I was clear about the goals for this class."

So, after comparing data from last year with data from this year, I know what I really need to do is communicate high expectations and make sure the students feel challenged.  (Note: this student survey thing is not something I have to do, it's one I made myself and give as part of the final exam- it's also anonymous).

The good news is 97% of students that took the survey agreed with the statement "I learned a lot in this class."

I don't want to be too hard on myself, because this is the wordle that came out of the "if you could describe this class in one word, what would it be?" question:

but I heard a quote (I think on twitter) that said something like: "If you show me a teacher who thinks they have it all figured out, I'll show you a bad teacher."  True. So right now, I'm watching Legally Blonde (one of my guilty pleasure movies- not ashamed) because it gets me excited and motivated. If Elle Woods can be totally awesome, so can I. Grabbing my lucky scrunchie, it's time for some planning and time for some science.

SATLAB at Kennedy Space Center

SATLAB week 2 was pretty exciting.

day 1:
launch preparations!

day 2:
launch!

Unfortunately, our balloon didn't go as high as we wanted it to, and when we finally recovered it, we learned the balloon had a failure and popped at a pretty low altitude, and ended up in a lake in a swamp on Merritt Island. Here's hoping we get to try again. :)

day 3:
Launching water rockets, a tour of the Space Life Sciences Lab, the US Space Walk of  Fame museum and dinner with Astronaut Jon McBride!

Mars simulation chamber 

Squid and stromatolites! 

day 4:
Looking at our balloon videos and exploring the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex! Had an awesome tour guide, touched a shuttle tile, and met a former space shuttle close out crew member! 

Popped. Soggy. 

VAB! 

A huge thanks to Florida Space Grant, University of Florida and SpaceTrek at KSC for all of the awesome things we learned and did during our 2 weeks!