Recommendations: bulbs, marbles, magnets and a human computer!
How to encourage girls' interest in tech — Newsletter No.23
Right before the weekend, we are sharing with you some activities you can do to showcase tech in a more diverse light. Let’s get straight to it!
💡 Which bulbs are brighter?
In this project, you will turn the bulbs on only with a 9V battery, tape, and aluminum foil. Surely, you have them all in the house already, or you can buy it in any nearby store.
By connecting the bulbs in parallel or series circuits you can learn about these two methods and discuss which one is better and brings out more light.
Check out the detailed instruction here and share with us how it was!
✏️ Levitating pencil
Here’s a fun activity, which will make you practice patience and learn about magnetization. This one is also not too equipment heavy, and probably the only thing you’ll be buying are ring magnets which you should be able to find on stationary stores or purchase online.
You can find the full instruction here. Additional challenge: What else can you make levitating?
📖 Human Computer: Mary Jackson, Engineer
In this full-color picture book biography you will read about Mary Jackson, who became the first female African American engineer at NASA. The book also includes several STEM activities for some real-world learning connections! Here is the link to it on Amazon.
Build marble-powered computers
We haven’t featured a toy for a while, but we got some great recommendations for this one! It teaches the fundamentals of computer programming (memory, queues, logic, switches, problem-solving) without them ever knowing that is what they are learning about.
And the best part — there are no screens! You can find it here.
That’s it! Have fun!
Please, don’t forget to share this newsletter with other parents in your network — it will mean a lot to us, but will help reduce the gender gap in tech. And if you remember from our previous newsletter, if you help in bringing more girls into tech, your daughter will feel more comfortable and will enjoy it more.