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Girls and Science

 

Note: also see Curriculum Innovations and Sample Programs

 

Chemistry STudentSchools with exemplary science programs

 

  • Young Women's Leadership Charter School of Chicago
     
  • Winsor School Science Department: The mission of the Winsor School's Science Department is to encourage girls' enthusiasm for science while providing them with the skills and content necessary for scientific literacy, an understanding of the scientific process and a solid preparation for post-secondary science study.
     
  • St. Margaret' School River Program "St. Margaret's is the only girls' independent boarding/day school in the country to offer a formal river program. Our program helps girls build confidence through outdoor adventures, encourages them as they explore environmental science careers, teaches them water sports they can enjoy for a lifetime, and shows them the value of volunteer service."
     
  • Dexter Southfield School - Clay Center. Operated by Dexter and Southfield Schools, the Clay Center for Science and Technology is a state-of-the-art astronomical observatory and learning center.  In addition to the observatory's seven research-grade telescopes, the Center contains sophisticated computer and science laboratories, a multi-media lecture hall, classrooms, and meeting spaces, and a solar energy roof deck, providing for an engaging and challenging science education for young women.
     
  • San Domenico School The school, located in San Anselmo, California, hosts an annual Women in Science Conference.  San Domenico teaches a high level of science and mathematics to our pupils who are curious about the opportunities that are beyond the classroom. Conference speakers are highly accomplished and acknowledged women who are innovators in their fields.
     
  • The Masters School
     
  • Marymount School of New York is an innovator in the integration of technology and science from Class I through Class XII.   Students use Flash to animate chemical reactions, express the science behind global warming, or to represent sound waves. Students produce weekend weather video podcasts or create short educational films in physics.  The school uses Central Park and the American Museum of Natural History as learning resources and integrates the study of robotics in Classes III, VII and VIII.
     
  • Marymount Los Angeles Students at Marymount Los Angeles pursue the study of sciences in a wide variety of courses.  Student achievement is supported through a progression of hands-on laboratory investigations, individual and group projects and active problem-solving situations.  Team Nautae, Marymount's robotics team, is one of the few all-girl teams that competes in the annual, nationwide FIRST Robotics Competition.
     
  • Marlborough School offers a curriculum is structured so that students have an opportunity to discover, explore, manipulate, contemplate, and experience real science. One highlight is the Honors Research in Science program, where students have the opportunity to practice "real world science in a real world research environment."
     
  • The Laurel School exemplary science program includes a Materials Science Class, an Independent Research in Science program and a wide range of electives.
     
  • Holton-Arms School believes that in order to best prepare the "mind, body, and spirit" for the girl who will "find a way or make one" in the 21st century, girls must have access to, experience and training in, and an understanding of the possibilities of new technologies.  Holton-Arms engineering course uses modeling software to test designs and concepts. 
     
  • Hockaday School
     
  • Hathaway Brown
     
  • Grier School for Girls
      
  • Greenwich Academy
     
  • Girls Middle School
     
  • Garrison Forest School/WISE The WISE Program is the outcome of a groundbreaking partnership between Garrison Forest School and The Johns Hopkins University to establish a critically needed mentoring program. It aims to encourage young women from Baltimore and around the country to pursue their interest in science and engineering.
     
  • Forest Ridge School/Outdoor Education Program Forest Ridge's innovative environmental education program is an exciting opportunity for high school students is to participate in a work-study program at the Sprout Creek Farm in Poughkeepsie, New York. Here, students learn about farm life while participating in daily academic classes. Students work the farm with assigned chores, even arising at dawn to feed the stock.
     
  • Emma Willard Emma Willard's Science Program engages students in discussion, group work, computer-based laboratories and simulations, experimental design, and long-term research projects.
     
  • Chapin
     
  • Bryn Mawr
     

Web links

Multimedia (Video & Software)

  • An Inconvenient Truth
  • Planet Earth (DVD set)
  • The Blue Planet (DVD set)
  • Mythbusters (TV show and DVD)
  • Extreme Engineering (TV Show and DVD)
  • How It's Made (TV Show)
  • Dr. Art Does Science (DVD)
  • Einstein's Big Idea (DVD; NOVA)
  • The Elegant Universe (DVD; NOVA)
  • Who Killed the Electric Car? (DVD)
  • National Geographic: In the Womb (DVD)
  •  

Recommended Science Books & Magazines

  • For K-3:
    • What is a Scientist? by Barbara Lehn
    • Flicker Flash by Joan Bransfield Graham
    • Diary of a Worm by Doreen Cronin
    • Officer Buckle and Gloria by Peggy Rathmann
    • My Five Senses by Aliki
    • Tops and Bottoms by Janet Stevens
    • Goodnight Max by Rosemary Wells
    • Gregory the Terrible Eater by Mitchell Sharmat
    • Dave's Down to Earth Rock Shop by Stuart J. Murphy
    • The Cloud Book by Tomie de Paola
    • It Looked Like Spilt Milk by Charles G Shaw
    • Dem Bones by Bob Barner
    • An Earthworm's Life by John Himmelman
    • Dotty Inventions and Some Real Ones Too by Roger McGough
    • Let's Go Rock Collecting by Roma Gans
    • Girls Think of Everything by Catherine Thimmesh
  • For High School (some are middle school appropriate)
    • The Fabric of the Cosmos (Brian Greene, Knopf Publishing)
    • A Short History of Nearly Everything (Bill Bryson, Broadway Books)
    • American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Kai Bird, Knopf Publishing)
    • Gray's Anatomy (Henry Gray, Barnes & Noble Books)
    • The Anatomy Coloring Book (Wynn Kapit, Pearson Education)
    • The Selfish Gene (Richard Dawkins, Oxford University Press)
    • Silent Spring (Rachel Carson, Houghton Mifflin)
    • A Brief History of Time (Stephen Hawking, Bantam Books)
    • The Botany of Desire: A Plant's Eye View of the World (Michael Pollan, Random House)
    • Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory (Brian Greene, Knopf Publishing)
    • Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe's Hidden Dimensions (Lisa Randall, HaperCollins)
    • The Hot Zone (Richard Preston, Knopf Publishing)
    • The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA (James Watson, Simon & Schuster)
    • Rosalind Franklin & DNA (Anne Pulley Sayre, W.W. Norton)
    • The Retrieval of a Legacy: Nineteenth-Century American Women Inventors (Denise E. Pilato, Praeger)
    • Notable Women in the Physical Sciences: A Biographical Dictionary (Benjamin F. Shearer and Barbara S. Shearer, Greenwood Press)
    • Black Stars: African-American Women Scientists and Inventors (Otha Richard Sullivan, John Wiley & Sons)
    • Obsessive Genius: The Inner World of Marie Curie (Barbara Goldsmith, W.W. Norton)
  • Magazines: