By compiling an abundance of resources in an easy to navigate website, more girls will be exposed to STEM, and feel empowered to enter the field, creating a more inclusive and greater future in STEM.
All three of us are at different stages in our STEM journey in different areas of the country, but one thing we have all noticed is the lack of resources and support available for girls interested in STEM. The myth that boys are innately better at learning math than girls results in biases and a confidence gap. However, research shows that there is no difference between genders in mathematical skills, and in countries with greater gender equality, the gap in the workforce is smaller. This suggests the gender gap is due to cultural and societal factors deeply rooted in our country’s history. Because STEM workforces are dominated by men, the lack of diversity results in innovation that could easily be improved by ideas from women. We were inspired by our experiences as women in STEM to create this platform to build confidence and empower young women to pursue a STEM degree and ultimately bridge the gender gap in this field.
Our website showcases many STEM resources such as hackathons, internships, camps, and conferences that are 100% free and are easy to access. To cater to the many interests, there are tons of resources to check out that are updated weekly. And to accommodate the girls who are unable to travel due to the ongoing pandemic, many resources provided are 100% virtual.
We built this website using JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. Since all of us were unfamiliar with web development, we spent some time developing a template and designing it on paper.
We were initially planning to build an iOS app using Swift on Xcode but we got 24 errors before we even began coding. That set us back a lot because we had to come up with a new plan on how to code our idea. We wanted to build an app so that it would be easily accessible and only a few clicks away. Despite our epic fail, we persevered and were determined to create something that helped young girls get involved in STEM. In the end, we felt that a website accomplished the same thing and we were able to add some cool elements like the take action page.
Although our project did not go as planned, we are so proud of how it turned out. We believe that our website looks inviting to girls interested in learning more about STEM and it provides them with amazing resources that will help them engage more. We are also proud of how quick we were at problem-solving. Scrapping a project is hard but deciding to start all over in another language is beyond impressive.
We learned more about Swift and using Xcode even though our final project does not use it. In addition, we learned more about web development including JavaScript, CSS, and HTML.
We do plan on adding more resources to this project since it is an easily accessible website and a great idea to encourage young females to learn more about STEM. STEM FEM plans to expand into providing resources for college students and eventually build our iOS app.
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