The Girls Excelling in Math and Science (GEMS) Club Initiative, Nova Labs and the Mid-Atlantic Girls Collaborative (MAGiC) has announced a new project: the Girl Makers of Northern Virginia. The Community Foundation for Northern Virginia’s Innovation Fund gave the project $1,000, while the Moore Family Foundation donated $2,000.
The fund is build upon two “Take Apart” sessions held at Nova Labs last winter. GEMS Club members are provided with armed with screwdrivers, pliers and safety glasses, dismantled computers, scanners and copy machines to see what makes them tick.
“We provide the recycled items and the tools and the girls provide the elbow grease and the enthusiasm,” says Brian Jacoby, Nova Labs President. The goal, he says, is to inspire tinkering and to feed girls’ natural curiosity, encouraging them to touch, try and explore.”
He added, “New funding will allow us to expand the program. Take Apart sessions, like Girl Makers, aims to build girls’ interest in pursuing STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) classes and careers.”
Nova Labs is a nonprofit “makerspace” in Reston that provides a community workshop where people can learn, teach and collaborate on creative and technical works, and promotes the usefulness of competence in the technical arts. The lab is part of the international grassroots Maker Movement.
“We all know the 21st-century economic engine is STEM innovation,” said Elizabeth Vandenburg, co-lead and outreach director of GEMS and MAGiC. “What is the untapped resource? Nearly 51 percent of the U.S. population is women. Girls need to get in the pipeline, and Nova Labs is at the cutting edge spearheading this exciting project.”
Founded by volunteers and teachers in 1994 at the McNair Elementary School, the GEMS Club initiative is a grassroots, after-school effort to expose and encourage third through eighth grade girls to the fun and wonder of STEM fields.
The GEMS Club initiative now has 35 clubs across Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) and expanded at the 2011 Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) in Chicago, Illinois.
The Mid-Atlantic Girls Collaborative (MAGiC) is a coalition of corporate, educational and non-profit organizations dedicated to promoting girls and STEM.
