Lazear Wildcats | Better Together
Better Together
No More Labels To Go To Space
Summary
This project tackles the issue of the lack of women of color in space/STEM. Our solution is to create an app that connects women of color with each other and STEM opportunities.
How We Addressed This Challenge
We developed this project to take action. We want to inform not only the judges but others that the lack of women of color in STEM is a serious issue. It's important because without people speaking out about this issue, we cannot impact positive change.
How We Developed This Project
As a middle student, Ashley, felt that discrimination and labels against women of color would impact her ability to enter STEM careers. The mission is to not only bring awareness to the lack of diversity in STEM but to offer a potential first step to solving this issue which is to connect current women of color in STEM with women of color who are thinking about or just entered the STEM field either as a student or an employee.
Our approach to developing this project was to first research the issue. Looking through the NASA website, we found that only 2 Latinas have gone into space and only 5 Black women have gone into space. We then researched statistics of WoC entering STEM related fields and found that the trend is not increasing despite the need for more people in STEM careers.
After our research, we used google slides to develop a presentation. We also met via zoom to continue developing our presentation. We also did some minor UX interface for our app layout.
One of the our biggest challenges was finding statistics on WoC in STEM both in academics and employment opportunities. We had to navigate various websites to find reliable information. It's not easy to find school, job, or scholarship opportunities specifically for WoC in STEM.
Our achievement was finding the information we needed to develop a layout of an app we think would make entry into STEM easier for WoC. We are also proud of the presentation we created because it outlines this year's challenge "Take Action" under the category "Better Together".
How We Used Space Agency Data in This Project
We relied heavily on NASA's archives, articles, and released statistics to gather information. Without NASA's information, our research would have taken much longer.
Project Demo
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/181oPjRq82RDzjzzV6cL7lFLwmv7alRB3Wy8e84NCuyw/edit?usp=sharing
Data & Resources
- https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/whm-recent-female-astronauts
- https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/african_american_astronauts_fs.pdf
- https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/hispanic_astronauts_fs.pdf
- https://www.nasa.gov/centers/hq/eodm/documents_resources/resources_for_learning_and_talking_about_racism_and_inequality
- https://www.catalyst.org/media-release/racism-and-the-george-floyd-protests/
- https://hbr.org/2020/06/u-s-businesses-must-take-meaningful-action-against-racism
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvdHqS3ryw0
- https://www2.ed.gov/about/inits/list/hispanic-initiative/stem-factsheet.pdf
- https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/2017/nsf17310/digest/fod-wmreg/hispanic-women-by-field.cfm