Women in Science – Australian Science

Four women researchers who were overshadowed in the sciences

Danica Radovanovic — Wed, 29 Jan 2014 00:15:31 +0000

As an advocate of women in science, I am illustrating why supporting the presence of women researchers as the voices of science today plays the crucial role, by presenting four stories of women who have changed the world in the male-dominated world of science, and still have been overlooked throughout their careers.

Beside well known women scientists who had to deal with biases against them in the STEM, such as Ada Lovelace, Marie Curie, Vera Rubin, Hedy Lamarr and many others who invented the core technologies that make civilization possible, here are four female scientists who did groundbreaking work and have made those contributions in spite of astonishing hurdles due to sexism.

Nettie Stevens, born on 7 July, 1861, in Cavendish, Vermont, was an American biologist and geneticist who was one of the first scientists to find that sex is determined by a particular configuration of chromosomes.

She received a Ph.D. in biology from Bryn Mawr College in 1903 and remained at the college as a research fellow in biology for a year, as reader in experimental morphology for another year, and as associate in experimental morphology from 1905 until her death, in 1912.

Image source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nettie_Stevens.jpg

She discovered that chromosomes determined sex, and in her first study, she looked at sex determination in the common mealworm. Investigating the mealworms, she found that the males contained reproductive cells with both X and Y chromosomes whereas the females contained only those with X. She proposed that these two chromosomes be called X and Y, and explained that sex is inherited as a chromosomal factor and that males determine the gender of the offspring. Her work on sex determination was published as a Carnegie Institute report in 1905.

“At the time, the chromosomal theory of inheritance was not yet accepted, and it was commonly believed that gender was determined by the mother and/or environmental factors.

test

The post Four women researchers who were overshadowed in the sciences appeared first on Australian Science.

If Ada can, so can we

Danielle Spencer — Wed, 13 Nov 2013 00:03:30 +0000

I have written before about the need to encourage our girls to pursue science in school and beyond. From my experience, girls at school are often reluctant to participate in science at first, until they are shown the possibilities that science offers. Girls need people to aspire to. Girls need to be shown that they are just as capable. With the recent celebration of Ada Lovelace Day last month, I set two of my young 12 year old female students on a mission: to find out about the significance of the day and explore the roles of females in science. The following piece is their writing.

Ada Lovelace was born in 1815 and died in 1852. She was the daughter of the famous poet Lord Byron and Anne Isabella Byron. Her parents separated when she was only 1 month old which made her life very hard and held her back from being successful. Despite this, Ada Lovelace was a mathematician at a time when females were not into those kinds of things. We now have a day in October every year to remember and celebrate what she did and what other women do in science.

Back then science wasn’t something that women did, so men would just do it. Women were not known for being scientists. Women didn’t work as much as men did. Women were the ones who looked after the house while men were at work. It would not be common for women to be seen working back when Ada was young. Ada never had a female scientist to influence her but she still went for it. Maybe having hardship like when her parents separated made her not worry what people thought. There were still a few female scientists but not enough to show that women were just as important as men.

Women were very courageous to be scientists back then because men were always the ones with the good jobs while women were mostly at home. There are more women role models these days to encourage young women to become scientists. This means that more women want to be equal to men and have just as good jobs. Now women have just as many rights as men do and this is a good thing because women are standing up for themselves and taking part in jobs that only men used to do. One of the reasons this is happening is because there are more female scientists to be role models for other women.

It is important for girls like us to have good female scientist role models because even if someone doesn’t like science as much as others they still get the idea that women are allowed to be scientists without men over-taking them. Girls like us find it good to have these sorts of role models because that makes us not only think about male scientists but women scientists and for once females are equal to men in science.

We personally would not enter a science field because that isn’t on our radar and neither of us think it’s the kind of thing that we would be great at. But that doesn’t mean that science is for males. All it means is that we would not like to be scientists. There are plenty of girls out there who do want to be scientists because there are more females who are encouraging them to be what they want to be. I think that science is not something that only one gender can do. Both male and female are able to do science because it’s not like males are smarter than females and both genders can be anything that they want to be. I think that female scientists have definitely grown from where they used to be. Overall women scientists did become as equal to men, thanks to people like Ada Lovelace.

Eva Hall & Rowena Fuhlbohm

Now neither Eva nor Rowena is particularly gifted in science but they are inquisitive and eager young things. I would also imagine that neither of these girls will enter science fields professionally, but what was important for them I think, are the following highlights;

they collaborated on this piece together,
they completed this piece of writing in addition to their normal curricular studies,
they believe in gender equality in science, and
they believe that women like Ada Lovelace led the way.

Cite this article:
Spencer D (2013-11-13 00:03:30). If Ada can, so can we . Australian Science. Retrieved: May 02, 2024, from http://australianscience.com.au/women-in-science-2/if-ada-can-so-can-we/

test

The post If Ada can, so can we appeared first on Australian Science.

A Tale of Two STEM Women

Buddhini Samarasinghe — Tue, 15 Oct 2013 00:22:56 +0000

Ada Lovelace Day is a day for celebrating the achievements of women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) fields. Recently, the New York Times published a fantastic article by Eileen Pollack, “Why Are There Still So Few Women in Science”. Women were leaving the profession not because they weren’t gifted but because of the “slow drumbeat of being under-appreciated, feeling uncomfortable and encountering roadblocks along the path to success”. In summary, the problem comes down to a lack of adequate support and encouragement for STEM women, whose confidence therefore slowly erodes over time, like limestone in an acid rain. Instead of beautiful stalactites however, we’re left with the ‘leaky pipeline’; the phenomenon where, although there appears to be gender parity, or even a majority, in the number of women in STEM fields at the undergraduate level, the senior staff ends up being almost predominantly male; the women have ‘leaked’ out of the pipeline.

I want to illustrate why support and encouragement is vital for women in STEM by presenting two stories. They are old; from the late 1800s and early 1900s, but their message remains as relevant today as it did back then.

For many people outside STEM fields, Marie Curie remains the go-to female scientist. Everyone knows about her fantastic work ethic and achievements, the only woman to win two Nobel Prizes, for Chemistry and Physics. A large part of her success comes from an uncompromising desire to excel at the things that she was passionate about, coupled with having people in her life who encouraged her to do so. Notably, both her father and grandfather were educators who encouraged her to pursue mathematics and physics, subjects that she wanted to study. She also married Pierre Curie, who treated her as an equal partner in every sense of the word. They supported and encouraged each other’s work constantly, and together were more successful than either would have been apart.

In contrast, the story of Clara Immerwahr is far more tragic and, to me, illustrates the loss faced by humanity when women in STEM are not encouraged. Clara Immerwahr was a chemist, and also the first woman to earn a Ph.D from the prestigious University of Breslau (now Wrocław). But unlike her (often-cited) contemporary Marie Curie, Immerwahr had the misfortune to marry Fritz Haber, who was definitely not an open-minded man like Pierre Curie was.

Fritz Haber is known for his contradictory contributions to society; on the one hand he is responsible for the Haber process by which ammonia is synthesized; this has applications in fertilizer production and is essential to our agriculture (he won the Nobel prize for this in 1918); on the other hand the scientists at his institute developed the gas Zyklon A, which the Nazis ‘refined’ into the notorious Zyklon B used in their concentration camp gas chambers. Haber was guilty too, of the development of other chlorine-based gases, infamously used in the German attack against the French in Ypres. Haber also developed Haber’s Rule, a horrific method to quantify the relationship between gas concentration, exposure time and death-rate. The mind recoils at the thought of what gathering data for this involved.

Haber’s views on women were no better than his views on gas warfare. According to an historian, Immerwahr “was never out of apron”, and she once confided to a friend about her subservient role; “It has always been my attitude that a life has only been worth living if one has made full use of all one’s abilities and tried to live out every kind of experience human life has to offer. It was under that impulse, among other things, that I decided to get married at that time… The life I got from it was very brief…and the main reasons for that was Fritz’s oppressive way of putting himself first in our home and marriage, so that a less ruthlessly self-assertive personality was simply destroyed”. She ended up translating his manuscripts into English and providing technical support on his nitrogen projects, her own dreams and potential ignored and forgotten; although she drew the line at helping him with his poison gas work.

Immerwahr was repulsed by Haber’s growing obsession with the development of poison gas. She confronted him numerous times but her pleas fell on deaf ears. On May 2nd 1915, she quarreled violently with Haber when she found out that he had come home for just the night and was leaving again in the morning to direct more poison gas attacks on the Eastern front. In the early hours of the morning, Immerwahr walked into the garden with Haber’s army pistol and shot herself in the chest. Haber of course did not let this inconvenience him, and left as planned the next morning without even making any funeral arrangements.

Marie Curie (left) and Clara Immerwahr (right). Two extremely talented women with vastly different stories.

When I first read this story, I was struck by how often we focus on happy stories like Marie Curie’s, and how the story of someone like Clara Immerwahr remains largely forgotten. She had a tremendous amount of potential, as evidenced by her being the first female to receive a Ph.D at the University of Breslau, an endeavor that is certainly not for the faint-hearted even now. One can only wonder at the ‘might-have-beens’ if she had had the same support and encouragement that Marie Curie did, if she had not married Haber, or if Haber had been a different kind of person. These examples highlight that talent alone is not enough; we need to encourage that talent by promoting equality and recognizing our own biases when it comes to women in STEM.

For Ada Lovelace Day, let us recognize that we not only have to celebrate women in STEM, we have an imperative to actively support and encourage them.

Cite this article:
Samarasinghe B (2013-10-15 00:22:56). A Tale of Two STEM Women. Australian Science. Retrieved: May 02, 2024, from http://australianscience.com.au/women-in-science-2/a-tale-of-two-stem-women/

test

The post A Tale of Two STEM Women appeared first on Australian Science.

Women take centre stage at ground breaking healthcare conference

Editorial Board — Mon, 13 May 2013 07:50:41 +0000

Over 50% of the speakers are prominent females in the scientific healthcare field at the ‘World Research and Innovation Congress – Pioneers in Healthcare’ event, Steigenberger Grandhotel, Brussels, 5 and 6 June, 2013

Professor Anne Glover, Chief Scientific Adviser to the President of the European Commission

Despite playing a significant role in science and healthcare throughout the ages, women globally are under-represented in this sector. A recent article in Nature magazine explains that there is still a scientific ‘gender gap’ with women continuing to face discrimination including disparities in pay and funding. (Helen Shen, 6/3/13)

Professor Anne Glover, Chief Scientific Adviser to the President of the European Commission, is the keynote speaker on the session Women in Science, addressing some of the key challenges in attracting women to this sector. Professor Glover will be joined by Professor Teresa Lago, Universidade do Porto, Portugal, founding member of the ERC Scientific Council and former Chair of the ERC gender balance working group.

Professor Glover says “While the 19^th Century has been the Age of Engineering and the 20^th Century the one of Chemistry and Physics, the 21^st Century is going to be the Age of Biology. Facing the challenges of an Ageing Society in Europe and still major basic health challenges in the Developing World, research helps to come up with solutions for our well-being. This includes exciting developments in areas such as synthetic biology, personalised medicine, vaccine research and other fields. The presentation will highlight in particular how important it is to enthuse young people to choose a career in health science.

test

The post Women take centre stage at ground breaking healthcare conference appeared first on Australian Science.

Science: It’s a Girl Thing?

Kelly Burnes — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 02:19:33 +0000

The role of gender has arisen in many a conversation in my science social circles as of late. Friend and fellow contributor to Australian Science Danielle Spencer sent the video “Science: It’s a Girl Thing!” a few weeks back. (You can view it below.) I had never seen it, but is has sure stuck with me. It’s an eyebrow raiser in my opinion. Viewing this well-produced, glossy video conjured up images of a James Bond feature film opener. (It is a European Commission production.) Smoke and mirrors, silhouettes, high heels, seems more of a teenybopper fashion show. Where is the relationship to science?

I see beakers for measuring liquids, microscopes, and atomic elements and verbally hear the word science, but references to makeup and the overuse of pink cascading across the screen as a spilled bottle of nail lacquer might, I fail to see the relevance.

Though to be fair, chemistry plays a quite a significant role in the production of cosmetics. And it is a $200+ billion dollar global industry. I got quite the kick out of teasing my brother who after college worked at P&G testing lipstick and diapers to ensure the products did not cause allergic reactions. (His role was in quality control and documenting participants’ feedback.) It’s an important role in the consumer products industry, to be sure.

If the goal was to increase interest in and motivate girls to pursue careers in science, I think the video falls short. Sure it exudes fun, but fun about what? Fun in being a marine biologist? Fun in pursuing a career in biopharmaceutical research? Fun in developing advanced robotics for use in outer space?

The clip has more of a cheerleader appeal than it does in the effort to encourage girls in their science education. (But, everyone can use someone in his or her corner cheering him or her on now and then.) It’s no wonder the video was taken down due to numerous complaints. I personally do not think science is a girl thing, or a boy thing, in the bigger picture, it has been and should remain to be a thing for humankind. Yes, men largely dominate the field. Women make choices to pursue science or another field for employment. What we need to do is to ensure that girls, and boys, are exposed to and supported in their science studies at an early age. Because science, it’s a fun thing.

Image: Varying views of women’s role in science. Photo Attribution: By Merwart [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Cite this article:
Burnes K (2013-02-01 02:19:33). Science: It's a Girl Thing?. Australian Science. Retrieved: May 02, 2024, from http://australianscience.com.au/women-in-science-2/science-its-a-girl-thing/

test

The post Science: It’s a Girl Thing? appeared first on Australian Science.

Sometimes it’s hard to be a woman (in science)

amy.r — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 00:01:03 +0000

Obtaining a senior academic position for any aspiring young academic is one of those uphill struggles with roads lined with self doubt, setbacks and sacrifice. Some call it the way to tenure-track, in my mind it’s one of those ill-defined paths through a potentially haunted forest inhabited with monsters, gigantic poisonous spiders and creepy people who communicate by screaming. It can be harder still to even reach that point, particularly for young women. While the number of women professors in Europe, N. America and Australia has increased over the last decade, universities still have a disproportionately small number of women in senior professorial positions.

While the numbers of female students are high at undergraduate and postgraduate levels (in my undergraduate studies there seemed a 1:3 male to female ratio), the senior academic positions tend to be held by men. This discrepancy is certainly not a question of ability. It sadly appears that a large proportion of talented female students either abandon their career ambitions in favour of a non-academic job, turn down fellowships or accept jobs at less competitive universities allowing a focus on raising children and enjoying family life. Quite simply, it appears that many women in academia lose faith in being able to “have it all

Cite this article:
Reichelt A (2013-01-29 00:01:03). Sometimes it's hard to be a woman (in science). Australian Science. Retrieved: May 02, 2024, from http://australianscience.com.au/women-in-science-2/sometimes-its-hard-to-be-a-woman-in-science/

test

The post Sometimes it’s hard to be a woman (in science) appeared first on Australian Science.

The Case for Neptune

Sharon — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 07:30:07 +0000

Take a moment to consider Neptune. The eighth planet in our solar system, the planet farthest from the Sun, and the third most massive planet in our solar system. Also one of the least visited, and consequently one of the least understood planets in our solar system. Neptune was discovered in 1846. Forty years later, in 1886, astronomer Sir Robert Ball wrote ‘Besides this brief sketch of the discovery of Neptune, we have little to tell with regard to this distant planet. With a good telescope and a suitable magnifying power we can indeed see that Neptune has a disc, but no features on that disc can be identified’.

Unfortunately in the last 126 years not much has changed. Due to its enormous distance from Earth (~ 30 Astronomical Units) Neptune remains little more than a blurry disk in the eyepiece of the most powerful ground based telescopes. In the past astronomers studied Neptune by examining the planet as it occulted, or passed in front of the light of another object, usually a star, allowing scientists to calculate its diameter, chemical composition, and temperature. The opportunity to study the gas giant only improved when Voyager flew by Neptune in 1989, and the Hubble Space Telescope was launched in 1990.

Voyager 2 launched in 1977, and reached Neptune on the 25th of August 1989 (click here for an impressive animation of the Voyager 2 flyby of Neptune). Although Voyager 2 began imaging the planet from about 35,000,000 million miles out, most of the data we have today is from a 24 hour period, during which Voyager 2 passed 4,500 kilometres above Neptune’s north pole at an eye watering 67,000 km per hour. During the trip to Neptune Voyager gathered about 5 trillion bits of information or about .5 of a Terabyte of data. That doesn’t sound much now, but back in 1977 the 3 computers on the Voyager spacecraft had a combined memory of 68Kb, so Voyager sent back almost 15 million times more data that could be stored in it’s memory!!

Scientists were thrilled by the data from Voyager 2 and set to work learning as much as they could about the distant blue planet. We learnt that Neptune is mostly composed of gas, is likely to have a rocky or metallic core, and that the majority of Netpune’s mass is hydrogen and helium, with traces of water, methane, ammonia, and other compounds. Thanks to Voyager 2 we learnt an enormous amount about Neptune’s atmosphere, weather systems, magnetic field, moons, and ring system. But that was over 30 years ago – and we now have more questions than answers.

Images from Voyager 2 showed that the most obvious feature of Neptune is its stunning blue colour, the result of methane in the atmosphere. Voyager 2 also revealed a more dynamic and turbulent atmosphere than anyone expected. Neptune’s atmosphere consists of layers of clouds, banded features, and unexpected structures, including what was termed the Great Dark Spot (GDS). Neptune generates the strongest jet streams anywhere in the solar system, reaching speeds of up to 2,400 kms per hour. Voyager detected weak auroras, similar to those on Earth, but because of Neptune’s complex magnetic field, the auroras appear over wide regions of the planet, not just near the planet’s poles. Despite what we do know, the structure and composition of Neptune’s atmosphere remains poorly understood. What accounts for the relatively high percentage of methane and lack of hydrogen and helium? What is the energy source responsible for powering the incredibly high speed winds and variable storm systems? What happened to the Great Dark Spot (observed by Voyager in 1989, but no where to be seen when Hubble observed the planet in 1994). Why is the temperature of Neptune’s thermosphere, a staggeringly high 750K (4760 degrees celsius)? How can Neptune be so cold and distant from the Sun, and yet radiate so much energy?

Thanks to Voyager 2 we know that Neptune’s magnetic field is approximately 25 times stronger than Earths, and that it’s lopsided (like Uranus), at 47^oto the rotation axis and offset from the planet’s centre. Although we suspect that Neptune’s magnetic field is generated by currents within Neptune’s icy mantle – we do not fully understand why Neptune’s magnetic field is oriented the way it is, or what processes could generate such an off-kilter magnetic field.

Voyager 2 image of Triton (Credit NASA)

Before Voyager 2, Neptune was thought to have 2 moons, Triton and Nereid. Voyager 2 discovered 6 new moons, and since Voyager’s visit, astronomers have discovered a further 5 moons. Most of what we know of Triton, Neptune’s largest satellite, was acquired in a single encounter by the Voyager 2 spacecraft, which imaged about 40% of its surface. If scientists were surprised by the images from Neptune, they were stunned by the images of Triton. Triton, is an icy moon with a surface temperature of -235^o, the coldest place known in the solar system. Voyager’s images revealed a geologically active planet, geysers spewing nitrogen gas and dust particles high into the atmosphere, rocky outcrops, canyons, and plains of frozen methane. Triton has a very thin nitrogen atmosphere with small amounts of methane, above a scarred and cracked surface. Triton showed no fresh impact craters, an indication of an active planet experiencing periodic resurfacing. But there’s still a lot to learn. Perhaps the most tantalising questions are about Neptune’s largest moon. Was Triton formed near Neptune, or is it a captured object from the Kuiper belt? What is the composition of Triton, and what causes the geologic activity, and has the distribution of the ice geysers changed dramatically since the Voyager flyby? Will further analysis of Triton tell us more about the solar system, and our place in it? Is there a sub surface ocean? Could Triton harbour life?

Earth-based observations during the 1980s suggested that there were a number of partial rings surrounding Neptune, and Voyager 2 discovered a system of equatorial, circular rings. Although Voyager 2 gave us a good look at Neptune’s rings, the details of their composition is still uncertain, we don’t know how long they’ve been there, or even if they are stable.

Despite the valuable insights bought to us by the Voyager mission, the Hubble Space Telescope and other studies, clearly there are still a number of questions about Neptune that still need to be answered. Technology has advanced enormously since 1977 and any new mission would be well equipped to examine Neptune, its rings and a number of its moons. A mission to Neptune would enable us to learn more about our outer solar system, and exploration of Triton may provide our best opportunity to examine the surface and atmosphere of a Kuiper Belt Object in orbit around a planet in our solar system. In 2003 NASA proposed a Neptune Orbiter/Triton Explorer, however, that mission appears defunct. Neither NASA nor ESA have any current or future plans for the exploration of Neptune.

I think that needs to change.

test

The post The Case for Neptune appeared first on Australian Science.

Hands on Science in the Early Years

Katie McIntyre — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 00:28:34 +0000

Hands on science activities to engage students in scientific inquiry and investigation are key in the early years to develop skills and knowledge in all areas of science. No one knows this better than Mrs Suzanne Clarke who is the founder of the mini-scammers science club at Mitchelton State School, a feeder club for SC@M (Science Club at Mitchie).

Hands on learning in the early years.

Established just this year, the junior science club encourages students in the early years to formulate hypothesis, carry out experiments and discuss their findings with their peers directly mirroring the similar process used in later years. Student work in multi-aged groups to manipulate materials and equipment, generate solutions and compare their results. As Mrs Clarke highlights “this method of discovery learning engages all children and promotes the use of multiple intelligences

test

The post Hands on Science in the Early Years appeared first on Australian Science.

Weekly Science Picks

Magdeline.L — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 00:15:18 +0000

The midlife crisis is more complicated than first thought. It might be time to stop blaming troubled marriages and feeling obsolete in a sea of younger colleagues. A study published in the Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences has revealed that chimpanzees and orangutans also experience a midlife crisis.

Having a midlife crisis may not just be the result of a troubled marriage or the thought that life may be halfway over. It might be part of primate biology. That’s right, hardwired into us.

Economist Andrew Oswald told ABC Science that it might be beneficial.

“Maybe discontent lights a fire under people, causing them to achieve more for themselves and their family.”

A shiny new red sports car might just indeed lead to better things.

Danielle Spencer runs a science club at Mitchelton State School in Queensland and explored where gender stereotypes in science began. Where does the perception that men do the “hard” sciences and women do the “soft” sciences come from? A group of 45 primary school students were surveyed and it was found that a majority of students thought that science was accessible to both genders.

When asked why there are more men than women in engineering roles, the students responded with gender based answers like “Girls like dancing and other jobs.” and “Women are more suited to caring and developing jobs like childcare and nursing.”. There was no response that challenging this observation. This was despite 75% of the group thinking that science was accessible to them. It is disheartening to hear.

Students were asked whether their science club should be split into a boys only and girls only science club, there was overwhelming support for a combined science club. There was an appreciation and acknowledgement that irrespective of gender, everyone had a valuable contribution. At the moment this cohort of students believe that science is something that everyone can do. The question remains though, how do we get adults to believe this?

As this week drew to a close, attention focused on NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. A story broke at NPR reporting that the Curiosity Rover may have found some exciting news. Project Scientist at the Mars Science Laboratory, John Grotzinger was quoted to saying:

“We’re getting data from SAM as we sit here and speak, and the data looks really interesting.”

SAM, the Sample Analysis at Mars is a miniaturised chemistry lab. On board is a Gas Chromatograph, Quadrupole Mass Spectrometer, Tunable Laser Spectrometer as well as sample processing systems that allow heating and chemically treating samples. Normally these instruments would fill the space in a laboratory but on Curiosity it’s around the size of a microwave. SAM is being used to collect information about the past and present chemistry of Mars. As well as this SAM is also identifying organic and inorganic chemical molecules known to be important to life on Earth.

So what has SAM found? Nothing has been confirmed but it does sound like there is something especially when Grotzinger says:

“This data is gonna be one for the history books.”

We will have to wait at least several weeks before NASA makes an announcement.

New Zealand’s volcano, Mount Tongariro made it into this week’s news with an eruption on Wednesday. Luckily there have been no reports of damage or injuries. However, a group of travellers and journalists hiking at the time witnessed and filmed the eruption.

test

The post Weekly Science Picks appeared first on Australian Science.

Setting up a science club in a primary school: Why you should!

Katie McIntyre — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 07:38:52 +0000

Last week, I dissected a chicken leg and while many may believe such a thing is not extraordinary having done it so many times, the ordinary became the extraordinary when I saw it through the eyes of a child in our recently established science club.

The research on extra-curricular clubs is growing and with it there is mounting evidence of the benefit to students. In 2010 Blomfield and Barber from Murdoch University published an article which asserted that “Extracurricular participation was positively associated with higher academic track enrolment, university aspirations, and school belonging, and negatively associated with skipping school

test

The post Setting up a science club in a primary school: Why you should! appeared first on Australian Science.