GE Corporation’s Mission to Close the STEM Gender Gap Starts at Local Middle Schools and High Schools

April 11, 2017
By Renee Morad, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff

In General Electric ’s recent ad campaign, the company imagines a world where female scientists are treated like celebrities. In an invented scenario, Millie Dresselhaus, the first woman to win the National Medal of Science in Engineering, is celebrated as a star, with young girls playing with dolls modeled after her, news segments covering her whereabouts and passersby asking for selfies with her. Then, GE gracefully shares a promise: to employ 20,000 women in technical roles by 2020.

Behind the scenes, GE is working assiduously to deliver. For the past eight years, in collaboration with the National Science Teachers Association and NASA, the company has been going into school districts to educate middle school and high school teachers on how to better encourage and implement STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) learning in the classroom. In locales such as New York City, Stamford, Conn., Louisville, Ky., Milwaukee, Wis., Boston and Atlanta, the company provided week-long teacher development programs in schools, exploring areas like robotics, blurring the lines between math and science and providing interactive hands-on lesson plans. They’ve enlisted the help of Barbara Morgan, the first educator to become an astronaut, and encouraged her to share her first-hand experiences with teachers.

“It’s so fun to go into classrooms after these programs and not be able to tell whether the teacher’s giving a lesson in science or math because it’s so integrated,” says Kelli Wells, executive director, education and skills, for GE Foundation.

These professional development programs have also spawned community-wide efforts to further the reach and awareness for STEM. In Stamford, Conn., for example, the public schools now host STEMfest, where 600 parents and children take over Mill River Park during a weekend to celebrate STEM through NASCAR expeditions, hands-on experiments and networking opportunities with local professionals.

In addition to educating teachers, GE recently launched the Brilliant Career Lab, which is a mobile lab that travels to various schools and after-school programs to inform high school students about the job opportunities available to them in various STEM roles. In a lesson about what it’s like to be a biomedical engineer, the lab uses 3D printers to build a body part and then explores how a doctor would use the 3D modeling software to prepare for surgery. Students can then learn more about related jobs, such as a microbiologist, and view average salary information and projected job openings across multiple professions to compare potential roles. The career lessons provided by the Brilliant Career Lab span from an airplane mechanic and video game developer to a wearable technology designer.

Then, in line with its mission to close the gender gap, GE also hosts 13, week-long summer camps for girls across the country each year. The program, called GE Girls, partners with local schools and universities to provide girls beginning at the middle school age with a week filled with hands-on STEM activities. The students dive into a freestanding balloon tower competition, explore urban design and plan smart city grids and make their own lip balm to learn more about the science behind cosmetics.

GE has set a strong example of standing behind its commitment to close the gender gap in STEM professions. The company currently employs about 15,000 women in STEM roles and plans to hire 5,000 more by 2020. However, GE also points out that our society, as a whole, has a long way to go. In a whitepaper published by GE, U.S. companies would have to hire roughly two million women in engineering and computing jobs over the next decade to eliminate the gender gap in STEM jobs altogether.

Indeed, it’s a big challenge to meet. But as GE visits school districts to overhaul STEM curriculums and hosts female students during week-long camps to invigorate their passion for STEM, every little step is a move in the right direction.